Macross Delta Zettai Live!!!!!! - Available on Blu-ray Sept 28, 2022

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

12 hours ago, Keith said:

He's jaded with his skill walking in, sees his grandaughter whom he believes inheritted none of it, knocks Hayate & Bogue around a bit to boost up the recognized resident aces, then finds out that even though he hasn't missed a step, he did miss what was obvious to Arad, Mirage's genius ie seeing genius in others.

Spoiler

TBH, I am not sure that I would call what Max does "boosting" Delta Flight.  He sets up a training exercise for them to test the remodeled VF-31s, gets frustrated with their poor performance, curb stomps them all without breaking a sweat, and then tells them how much he thinks they suck... Mirage gets it twice.  

Then, later and apropos of nothing in particular, he decides to praise Mirage for standing still on a battlefield and micromanaging the troops under her command... which is pretty nonsensical given how fast paced the combat is.  It's made even worse if you know that every Valkyrie for the last sixty years has had command and control software that does exactly what she's doing manually, but infinitely faster, automatically, and without the need for speech.

 

12 hours ago, Keith said:

Do we know if the organization behind glasses guy (whom we now know funded Roid & Heimdel) is also behind Grace & perhaps the intial creation of Sharon Apple to start with?

You mean the Epsilon Foundation?

No, as far as we know the Epsilon Foundation has not been involved in any of the prior shenanigans in the Macross setting.

The Epsilon Foundation is more or less your standard anime zaibatsu with an almost comical number of subsidiary companies giving it at least some presence in most any field of industry you'd care to name.  They make everything from tourist-y knickknacks and everyday necessities to personal electronics to military hardware.  They do seem to do business with a lot of the major players from previous shows, though.  Especially General Galaxy.

 

Spoiler

12 hours ago, Keith said:

It just hits me that the propegation of a galaxy wide matrix being initiated by 3 seperate parties is a bit too coincidental. If there were any Protoculture alive lurking in the shadows of tje galaxy, I really think ir's these guys trying hard to push things from those shadows.

Well, only two... Macross Galaxy, and the Kingdom of the Wind.

Spoiler

Heimdall seized the Protoculture System at the start of the film not for its intended purpose from the series and first movie, but to exploit one of its secondary functions.  Its ability to create super fold gates was used by the Siren Delta System to create a super fold gate into the fold fault where the Megaroad-01 was.  

 

Spoiler

12 hours ago, Keith said:

Not only being a representation of The Star Singer but having a rune to boot, could potentially be the most powerful being in the universe.

Spoiler

Probably not... given that Windermereans fold song abilities are basically "Cast from Hit Points" and they have terribly short lifespans.

If anything, this probably revealed the genetic origin of the Windermereans.

 

Spoiler

12 hours ago, Keith said:

I really want "The Labyrinth of Time" to lead somewhere. I mean really, what the hell does the Vajra Queen need with Alto? Is she feeding him? Is she cleaning him? Is her fasconation with him due to an imprint on the Vajra network from Ranka? Hell, was the Vajra queen overwritten by the little queen?

I cried so hard at Ranka calling out for S021-5 & F09.

Spoiler

I'd say it did... Ranka apparently successfully sent a zero-time fold communication to Alto via the Labyrinth of Time.

It's interesting that Alto and Sheryl apparently had their respectively callsigns in their phone numbers... 0215-F09 and 0258-S04.  "Macross 021 Fairy 9" and "Macross 25 Skull 04".

 

[darkranger12]

I guess if Alto does come back with the varja queen I guess we'll get some closure there...although there still is sheryl being unconcious.

 

[kalvasflam]

26 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

I guess if Alto does come back with the varja queen I guess we'll get some closure there...although there still is sheryl being unconcious.

 

duh, have you ever heard of sleeping beauty.....

Edited October 16, 2022 by kalvasflam

[darkranger12]

Yeh I see that now..

 

[charles88]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Cromwell would have to have some pretty solid evidence and a very compelling argument to do the things he did.  He was able to convince a significant portion of the New UN Forces to side with him and obtain the financial and materiel support to sustain his organization, remodel the Battle Astraea, purchase dozens if not hundreds of cutting edge 5th Gen unmanned Valkyries loaded for bear with fold quartz enhancements, and buy all manner of other robotic weapons like conventional Ghosts and robot soldiers.  That isn't a cheap undertaking.  If he were a crazy person chasing a paranoid delusion, he would not have been able to get the billions upon billions of dollars of money he needed to do all of that

Spoiler

In the movie already explained that Eplison Foundation the one fully funded and sponsor Crownwell by heavily modified Macross Astrea and provide Siren System and Sv-303 army. The SAME organisation that funded and backed Macross Galaxy and Roid. I mean they rich enough to fund entire colony fleet and entire Kingdom, should be no problem they funded 1 rogue organisation. Also Cromwell crazy enough to directly attack ENTIRE NUNS which include Eden, Vajra and even Earth, something that not even Roid dare to do it

Also where your proof that Lady M the one create Siren system as movie only stated Eplison the one created Siren system?

 

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by charles88

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

9 hours ago, charles88 said:

In the movie already explained that Eplison Foundation the one fully funded and sponsor Crownwell by heavily modified Macross Astrea and provide Siren System and Sv-303 army.

... and you have missed the point completely.

Spoiler

Cromwell secured an absolutely enormous investment of capital and resources for his organization Heimdall.  Enough to fully refit a current-generation Battle-class ship with fold quartz enhancements and other cutting-edge technology including hundreds of unmanned 5th Generation Valkyries with fold quartz enhancements.  He would've had to have a fantastically good argument and quite a lot of supporting evidence to convince his backers, including the Epsilon Foundation, to invest the equivalent of the GDP of an entire emigrant fleet in his cause.

That's not like asking your parents for a fiver to go get McDonalds... we're talking about tens of billions, and more likely hundreds of billions if not trillions, of dollars.

To give you an idea, if we were to make a terribly unlikely assumption that the Sv-303 costs no more than the VF-1A did when it was new and Heimdall were to purchase only enough of them to fully outfit the Battle Astraea with them... that's $93.75 billion dollars spent just on aircraft.  If the Sv-303 costs twice as much as the VF-1 did in 2008 and Heimdall bought only 100 of them for its entire force that's still $25 billion spent.  That's JUST to buy the aircraft, not fuel, maintenance, munitions, etc.

That's not a sum of money you give someone casually.  Cromwell would have to have made a very compelling case supported by a LOT of evidence to convince them that it was to their advantage to invest that gargantuan amount of money in Heimdall's mission and risk sanctions, prosecution, or a breakup of their company from the New UN Government should Heimdall's plan fail.

He also convinced a large portion of New UN Forces to support him.  He would have to have some pretty convincing evidence to sway so many New UN Forces commanders to his cause.  Reputation alone won't get you very far.

 

9 hours ago, charles88 said:

The SAME organisation that funded and backed Macross Galaxy and Roid. I mean they rich enough to fund entire colony fleet and entire Kingdom, should be no problem they funded 1 rogue organisation.

This is also wrong on multiple levels.

Macross Galaxy's sponsor has been known since the Macross Frontier TV series, and it is NOT the Epsilon Foundation. 

Macross Galaxy is named Macross Galaxy for a reason... its sponsor, and the owner/parent company of the Macross Galaxy Corporation that governs the Macross Galaxy fleet as a flying company town, is the defense industry megacorporation General Galaxy.

The Epsilon Foundation didn't support the Kingdom of the Wind's ambitions for free either.  The Kingdom paid the Epsilon Foundation for their assistance.  Windermere IV had no real technological base to speak of, having effectively jumped directly from a pre-industrial feudal society to an interstellar one overnight thanks to the intervention of the humans from Megaroad-04.  Everything they use - ships, Valkyries, other vehicles, weapons, ammunition - is purchased from the Epsilon Foundation's many subsidiary companies.  It takes no great leaps of logic to figure out how they paid for it.  Fold quartz was the only valuable resource Windermere IV had and its extraction and trade is heavily regulated under the New UN Government. 

Spoiler

Cromwell would have had to make a VERY compelling argument on behalf of his organization Heimdall for the Epsilon Foundation and who knows how many others to take the risks involved in giving him national GDP-levels of cash, selling enough weapons to outfit an entire national defense force to him, and even giving him restricted weapons like thermonuclear reaction missiles.  Nobody is going to casually hand out that kind of firepower.

 

9 hours ago, charles88 said:

Also where your proof that Lady M the one create Siren system as movie only stated Eplison the one created Siren system?

Go back and actually read it this time.

[Master Dex]

35 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Go back and actually read it this time.

As they like to say these days, "I'm just asking questions." Lol

That is to say, that's how I read it when you posed the hypothesis that charlie seems to be confusing for you stating as a fact. 

[davidwhangchoi]

So... what is the next Macross series? 

Super Dimensional Lady M? 

[Seto Kaiba]

After listening to the uncut versions of the songs in the movie on the OST, I have to admit this movie actually has a few pretty good songs.  Nowhere near as good as the few real bangers Walkure had in the main series, but a few actually-good songs that are just completely ruined by the movie's trash-tier sound editing.  "Glow in the Dark" probably comes the closest to the higher standard set by the TV anime.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Seto Kaiba

[Hikaru Ichijo SL]

I finally got to see the Movie and wow.  I thought it was pretty good.  I do not hate Delta as much as I used to.

[Gendo Koun]

On 10/20/2022 at 3:54 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

After listening to the uncut versions of the songs in the movie on the OST, I have to admit this movie actually has a few pretty good songs.  Nowhere near as good as the few real bangers Walkure had in the main series, but a few actually-good songs that are just completely ruined by the movie's trash-tier sound editing.  "Glow in the Dark" probably comes the closest to the higher standard set by the TV anime.

Imo, "Mugendai Drive" is a pretty good song but I have no idea why they didnt add it in the movie. Its pretty darn suitable for pumping up combat scenes and the song "ALIVE - Inori no Uta" feel emotional to me and actually made me cry even listened to it alone 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, Gendo Koun said:

Imo, "Mugendai Drive" is a pretty good song but I have no idea why they didnt add it in the movie. Its pretty darn suitable for pumping up combat scenes and the song "ALIVE - Inori no Uta" feel emotional to me and actually made me cry even listened to it alone 

It's not bad, but it's not exactly memorable either. 

None of the tracks on the Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! soundtrack are very memorable.  Nothing there really jumps out as THE song for Absolute Live!!!!!!.

[aurance]

I just watched it and… yeah this s*** makes no sense.

And I’m firmly in the camp of Megaroad-1 should have remained a mystery forever. Ugh.

[SebastianP]

I honestly don't get why people are so strange about this movie...

Spoiler

Basically every villain in Macross since Space War 1 has been of the militarist "why are we not putting the boot to the enemy harder and using all our resources to secure our future no matter how unethical" variation. 

In the 2000s, you have the hardliners on both sides of the Unification War, which was hard fought. (Macross The First, Macross Zero)

In the 2010s, you still have hardliners in charge, Admiral Hayase's faction of the UN Spacy being part of them. (SDF Macross)

In the 2020s, you have unethical experiments that need a cleanup crew (in the form of Max and Milia (Macross M3)

In the 2030s, more of the same (Macross M3)

In 2042, you have the Sharon Apple incident, one of the root causes of which was a conspiracy to eliminate pilots by demonstrating the superiority of drones (also, a conspiracy on militarized AI research using dubiously sourced hardware).

In 2045, you have Macross Seven being ordered to screw the civilians and go deeper into territory that had already eaten two previous colony fleets whole; and in 2046 the order to eliminate a whole Meltran fleet rather than even try diplomacy (the one where Exsedol creatively interprets his orders and blames his own ineptness as a commander for totally missing the target with the main gun on Battle 7) (Macross 7 and Macross 7 Encore)

In 2047, you have human-backed Rogue Zentraedi being pumped up as a threat to increase the power of the military (VF-X)

In 2051, the same faction of of the UN spacy that were propping up the Rogue Zentraedi actually try to enact a coup (VF-X2)

In 2059, you have Macross Galaxy try to take over the Vajra so they can dominate the galaxy, and in the movies the Frontier government tries to co-opt their plan (Macross Frontier)

In 2060, you have Task Force Havamal decide to use the time-related ancient weapon sealed in a can to rewrite history to make humans supreme (Macross 30)

In 2067, you have a NUNS task force more concerned with researching the Protoculture ruins and denying them to the enemy than they are actually rescuing the civilians that are at threat from them, and rebel client race being propped up by a shadowy conglomerate with ties to both the 2000s anti-UN, the Macross Galaxy conspiracy, and the Vindirance/Lactence (Macross Delta) 

And now, later in 2067 or in 2068, you have a rogue NUNS officer that blames all of the "no, we don't actually need to stomp everyone we meet flat and turn the ones we don't exterminate into client races, or engage in other ethically dubious behavior as a national policy" decisions that have come out of the civilian government since the 2020s (cloning stopped in 2030) on the influence of Lady M... who was incommunicado until only a few years ago. 

That's a *lot* of dubious crap going on and resentment building over having said dubious crap called out and stopped. 

I'm basically thinking that the whole story about "Lady M made us stop doing all these things that would have been good for us, it's a conspiracy" is a massive projection, and that Epsilon is basically just the Anti-UN/Militarist movement in its modern form, with everyone from DD and Nora in Zero, whatever the villains names were in the Macross The First flashback arc, the shady researchers and Rogue Zentraedi backers, the Lactence people, the Macross Galaxy leadership, Windermere and Heimdall (and even Epsilon themselves) being pawns of someone actually working behind the scenes, who found "Lady M" to be a nice scapegoat to blame for all ills that had befallen people like Cromwell when they do their recruitment pitch.

"You know what's really wrong with this galaxy, and the real source of all your woes? Lady M, that's who. The bitch has been interfering for decades, shutting down promising research and development and steering humanity away from its rightful path, You want to right the wrongs done to you, and avenge your friends? Kill Lady M, remove her influence from the galaxy", says the Epsilon representative to Admiral Cromwell to secure his allegiance and give him - a useful gullible pawn - a target to aim at. When in reality it's Epsilon, or whoever is controlling them, who is the conspiracy and the various heroes of the various stories have been frakking up their plans by doing the right thing with no prompting from the crew of Megaroad-01 up until very recently. 

And then they prime all of their other pawns with "we're going to make our move, be prepared to do the same when the signal is given" all across the galaxy. They're not *Cromwell's* followers, they're *Epsilons*, or at least recruited for Cromwell by Epsilon, possibly as a way to get all the stupid ones purged. 

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I honestly don't get why people are so strange about this movie...

Based on the content of the rest of your post, I think that's really more a "you" problem... you've got a lot of factual inaccuracies there.

 

 

Spoiler

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Basically every villain in Macross since Space War 1 has been of the militarist "why are we not putting the boot to the enemy harder and using all our resources to secure our future no matter how unethical" variation. 

That's not remotely accurate, as we will illustrate momentarily.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In the 2000s, you have the hardliners on both sides of the Unification War, which was hard fought. (Macross The First, Macross Zero)

While this is true to a certain extent for the Unification Wars (plural) as a whole, by the time of the events of Macross Zero and the flashback arc of Macross the First, this is generally not true anymore.

The Earth Unification Government was formed by mutual consent of the nations of Earth in the face of the possible threat of alien invasion.  The Anti-Unification Alliance, on the other hand, started as a loose confederation of people polite society would consider dangerously unhinged - anti-government militias, militant nationalists, groups who'd refused to let go of various ethnic, sectarian, or regional conflicts, etc. - and only got more terroristic as time went on.  By the time of Macross Zero in July 2008, the Alliance had escalated from armed resistance to the UN Government to acts of mass slaughter.  In September 2005, they hijacked an Oberth-class destroyer and wiped out the Mars Return Fleet carrying personnel from the abandoned Mars base.  In October 2006, they destroyed St. Petersburg, Russia with a thermonuclear reaction weapon.

The Alliance as a whole had already essentially folded before the events of Macross Zero in July 2008.  The remaining Alliance forces were an increasingly unhinged group that were determined to destroy the UN Government at any cost after losing their backing.  By the end of 2008, the remaining Alliance forces had been reduced to throwing their lives away in suicide attacks on UN Forces bases like the attack on Grand Cannon III or the Christmas Eve attack on South Ataria island.  Treating the threat seriously was basic competence on the part of the UN Forces.  Having orders to destroy the Birdman rather than allow it to fall into the Alliance's hands is common sense.  Would you want an alien weapon of unknown power falling into the hands of a terrorist organization that had just recently nuked a city of 5 million people off the map?

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In the 2010s, you still have hardliners in charge, Admiral Hayase's faction of the UN Spacy being part of them. (SDF Macross)

General Takashi Hayase was depicted as a reasonable authority figure throughout Super Dimension Fortress Macross.  He was not only not a hardliner, he was one of THE leading officers in the UN Forces.  He was wlling to pursue negotiation with the Zentradi, but like everyone not aboard the Macross he undersold the threat represented by the Zentradi based on fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of space warfare that were organization-wide.

It's also worth noting it is explicitly indicated that hopes for negotiation were in vain anyway, since Boddole Zer had already decided to destroy Earth.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In the 2020s, you have unethical experiments that need a cleanup crew (in the form of Max and Milia (Macross M3)

In only one isolated case.

Even that was an attempt to create a more ethical alternative to a clone army like the Zentradi that could be used to defend humanity.  It was simply ill-considered.

The rest of what the Dancing Skulls get up to is counterterrorism.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In the 2030s, more of the same (Macross M3)

Just counterterrorism, actually.  Fighting hostage-takers and Zentradi who'd decided to return to a live of Only War.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2042, you have the Sharon Apple incident, one of the root causes of which was a conspiracy to eliminate pilots by demonstrating the superiority of drones (also, a conspiracy on militarized AI research using dubiously sourced hardware).

Ah, no.

For one, it wasn't a conspiracy.  It was another (rival) development program initiated by the New UN Government and its goal was the generally admirable desire to minimize the number of human lives at risk or lost in conflicts with the Zentradi.  That the protagonists didn't know about it was simply a product of it being outside of their Need To Know.

Likewise, there was no conspiracy surrounding the Sharon Apple system unless you count the one-man conspiracy carried out by Marge Gueldoa, the mentally unwell lead scientist who had become obsessed with making the Sharon virtuoid "alive".  The system was another government program aimed at making living aboard early generation emigrant ships less unpleasant.  It only went pear-shaped because the prototype's personality was sampled from a failed idol singer with more baggage than most airports and a dangerous and illegal processor was clandestinely installed by the program's lead engineer causing the system to go berserk.

It's worth noting that this did not stop unmanned fighters from carving out a much larger niche for themselves for exactly the reasons the New UN Government intended to switch entirely to unmanned fighters: they're cheaper, and using them doesn't risk the lives of living pilots.  It's noted in Macross Frontier that the next-gen Ghosts based on the X-9 had effectively become co-main fighter alongside the VF-171 and some emigrant governments had adopted all-Ghost airforces.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2045, you have Macross Seven being ordered to screw the civilians and go deeper into territory that had already eaten two previous colony fleets whole; and in 2046 the order to eliminate a whole Meltran fleet rather than even try diplomacy (the one where Exsedol creatively interprets his orders and blames his own ineptness as a commander for totally missing the target with the main gun on Battle 7) (Macross 7 and Macross 7 Encore)

One, not two... but overall the risk of bumping into an enemy fleet by accident the way space fold works is extremely low.

The Meltran fleet is also fairly straightforward common sense.  The Minmay Attack has limited utility against the Zentradi and mainly just disorients them long enough to be forced to retreat by targeted attacks on their command ships.  Destroying the fleet is the only way to definitively end the threat it poses to emigrant fleets and planets in that region of the galaxy.  (It's worth noting that the Zentradi do occasionally stumble on emigrant fleets and planets and either destroy or badly damage them by attacking on a semi-regular basis.)

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2047, you have human-backed Rogue Zentraedi being pumped up as a threat to increase the power of the military (VF-X)

Not really, the UN Forces send a single Special Forces team with barely one platoon's worth of personnel to rescue the kidnapped civilians.  That's not, by any means, a heavyweight response.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2051, the same faction of of the UN spacy that were propping up the Rogue Zentraedi actually try to enact a coup (VF-X2)

No... the militant Earth supremacist faction was presenting proponents of giving emigrant governments more autonomy as terrorists and using the VF-X Special Forces to suppress them.

This is basically the ONLY time the story actually aligns with the argument you're making.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2059, you have Macross Galaxy try to take over the Vajra so they can dominate the galaxy, and in the movies the Frontier government tries to co-opt their plan (Macross Frontier)

Nooope...

In 2059, you have the corporate entity Macross Galaxy trying to take over a Vajra hive because they're run by a cabal of transhumanists who believe they can use the Vajra Queen's zero time fold wave communications abilities to help them create a galaxy-wide human collective consciousness that'll abolish humanity's internal conflicts and let the species achieve (the Protoculture's) ideal societal state.  

In the movies, the Macross Frontier fleet (under the direction of its corporate sponsor Bilra Transport) is aggressively pursuing a monopoly on fold quartz and mistakenly believes the Macross Galaxy fleet are after the same thing instead of recognizing their transhumanist ambitions.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2060, you have Task Force Havamal decide to use the time-related ancient weapon sealed in a can to rewrite history to make humans supreme (Macross 30)

In 2060, you have two deeply traumatized NUNS Special Forces officers attempting to use a Fold Evil the Protoculture created to go back in time and make the First Space War un-happen, saving billions of lives at the expense of altering history and preventing most of the people currently alive from existing.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

In 2067, you have a NUNS task force more concerned with researching the Protoculture ruins and denying them to the enemy than they are actually rescuing the civilians that are at threat from them, and rebel client race being propped up by a shadowy conglomerate with ties to both the 2000s anti-UN, the Macross Galaxy conspiracy, and the Vindirance/Lactence (Macross Delta) 

I think you've forgotten that in the incident you're describing, the one who delayed the evacuation was LADY M.  

In 2067, the regional New UN Forces of the Brisingr globular cluster are trying and failing to defend their planets from an aggressive, expansionist empire driven by racism and nationalistic propaganda that's been waging a covert campaign of terrorist biowarfare against them undetected for years.  Their efforts are hamstrung by their troops falling victim to mind control via biowarfare agents, obsolete equipment, and an uncooperative PMC whose mysterious backer generally does everything she can to either hinder the New UN Forces in their mission or at least prevent them from being helpful until it's far too late.

Mind you, said expansionist empire was not a client state either.  They believe they were, but that's a badly skewed perspective colored by their nationalistic worldview and the gaiden manga reveals their grievances were nothing profound.  Their King was unhappy with the pace of his planet's economic development as it transitioned from the feudal agricultural economy it had before first contact to an interstellar economy, despite the fact that the entire cluster was in an economic slump.  He was also unhappy that he couldn't pull a legal Get Rich Quick scheme because trade in fold quartz was regulated by the New UN Government due to its potential applications in planet killing weapons of mass destruction.  And lastly, he was unhappy that the mutual defense agreement he agreed to was mutual... as in, he was unhappy he had to help defend his neighbors the same way they'd have to help defend him.  The 2060 war of secession was basically a tantrum thrown by an absolute monarch unused to being told "No" or having to negotiate with equals.  He propped up his regime with "master race" rhetoric and launched an invasion of his neighbors bankrolled through black market trade in fold quartz and using weapons purchased from an amoral corporation they had previously been doing entirely legal business with.

(Their links to the Anti-Unification Alliance are entirely cosmetic... being through a "punch clock" member of the SV-51 development team who defected to the UN Government before the war ended, and even that only comes via their links to Macross Galaxy's parent company General Galaxy.  The Epsilon Foundation has no direct link to Macross Galaxy or the old Anti-Unification Alliance.)

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

And now, later in 2067 or in 2068, you have a rogue NUNS officer that blames all of the "no, we don't actually need to stomp everyone we meet flat and turn the ones we don't exterminate into client races, or engage in other ethically dubious behavior as a national policy" decisions that have come out of the civilian government since the 2020s (cloning stopped in 2030) on the influence of Lady M... who was incommunicado until only a few years ago. 

and no... there's nothing like that in the movie at all.

In 2068, we have a rogue New UN Spacy fleet commander from a destroyed planet leading a very large paramilitary organization backed by large portions of the New UN Government and New UN Forces on a mission to hunt down and destroy a person or persons who have been manipulating the government and military from the shadows and without the public's consent or even knowledge and is opposed by forces loyal to that mysterious person.

It's also worth noting that at no point does anyone actually refute Cromwell's argument about Lady M's secret interference with the government, or dismiss his claims as crazy nonsense.  They just explain why Cromwell doesn't agree with Lady M's positions on various technologies and those all end up making Cromwell sound like a pretty reasonable dude.  (Esp. since the writers in this film forgot that several of the things they're depicting as banned AREN'T banned in previous titles and are shown and said to have the exact benefits he describes.)

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

That's a *lot* of dubious crap going on and resentment building over having said dubious crap called out and stopped. 

It's dubious, but it's because the writing in the film is of generally poor quality and contains a LOT of inconsistencies.  Not just with previous works, but also with itself!

I've noted a few of the more glaring ones in previous posts, like Heinz's inability to remember how long Windermere has been at war with the New UN Gov't for.

 

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I'm basically thinking that the whole story about "Lady M made us stop doing all these things that would have been good for us, it's a conspiracy" is a massive projection, and that Epsilon is basically just the Anti-UN/Militarist movement in its modern form, with everyone from DD and Nora in Zero, whatever the villains names were in the Macross The First flashback arc, the shady researchers and Rogue Zentraedi backers, the Lactence people, the Macross Galaxy leadership, Windermere and Heimdall (and even Epsilon themselves) being pawns of someone actually working behind the scenes, who found "Lady M" to be a nice scapegoat to blame for all ills that had befallen people like Cromwell when they do their recruitment pitch.

Nope.

The Epsilon Foundation is a conglomerate megacorporation.  Its only connection to the Anti-Unification Alliance is an incredibly tenuous in-name-only one involving Alexei Kurakin, a former member of the SV-51 development team at Sukhoi who defected to the UN Government before the Unification Wars ended and worked for Stonewell and Bellcom on the VF-4 program before becoming one of General Galaxy's cofounders years after the First Space War.  He founded the SV Works, a development studio that'd been inspired by his belief that the era of VF on VF combat would return and worked on developing VFs specifically designed to fight other VFs.  The Sv-262 and Sv-303 are designs by the SV Works that are manufactured by an Epsilon Foundation subsidiary company named Dian Cecht.    That's it.  That's the ENTIRE connection.

They're not mentioned as having any connections to the Macross Galaxy fleet at all.  They have ties to General Galaxy via the above-mentioned SV Works team, but they're mainly just selling build-under-license versions of General Galaxy hardware to governments and PMCs.  Likewise, there's nothing tangible linking them to Latence and the leader of Heimdall is an emigrant government fleet commander (meaning he's likely from the pro-autonomy camp that opposed Latence and backed its rival Vindirance).

Epsilon did sell arms to Windermere IV, but that's just business.  They were selling them Valkyries and ships before Windermere IV seceded from the New UN Gov't (like the build-under-license 4th Gen Sv-154 Svard) and continued doing so afterwards with no indication given that it was prohibited to continue doing business with them after the secession.  They backed Roid's research into the Protoculture system, but that's not really unusual either since it was a Protoculture relic under active study authorized by a leading government official.  It's also noted explicitly that the Epsilon Foundation also sells to the New UN Forces and Xaos.

The idea that "Lady M" is a scapegoat is pretty obviously wrong on the face of it.  Cromwell secures a HUGE amount of backing from the Epsilon Foundation, New UN Gov't, and New UN Forces specifically to go after her.  He takes his whole force to the arse end of the galaxy specifically to go after Lady M.  If he were looking to do something like overthrow the New UN Government he is headed in the WRONG DIRECTION by like 75,000 light years.  He even sacrifices his own life and his flagship in his bid to free the galaxy from Lady M.  Also, it's Cromwell, not Sydney Hunt, who is the one keen to go after Lady M.  Hunt is just there to oversee testing of the Siren Delta System and gets killed when he tries to leave before the job is done.

 

 

[SebastianP]

Spoiler

I haven't played through the games and have to go on plot summaries for VF-X and M3, so apologies for getting those wrong. I had the impression that the Feios Valkyrie from VF-X had actual help from somewhere rather than being the work of malcontents with access to a UN Spacy prototype, because malcontents and wild Zentraedi struck me as the uneducated non-technical types who couldn't hack the new way of living, rather than the ones who'd fond a niche for themselves. 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

In 2059, you have the corporate entity Macross Galaxy trying to take over a Vajra hive because they're run by a cabal of transhumanists who believe they can use the Vajra Queen's zero time fold wave communications abilities to help them create a galaxy-wide human collective consciousness that'll abolish humanity's internal conflicts and let the species achieve (the Protoculture's) ideal societal state.  

In the movies, the Macross Frontier fleet (under the direction of its corporate sponsor Bilra Transport) is aggressively pursuing a monopoly on fold quartz and mistakenly believes the Macross Galaxy fleet are after the same thing instead of recognizing their transhumanist ambitions.

They believe they can use the Vajra Queen's zero time fold wave communications abilities *and her soldiers* to create a galaxy-wide collective consciousness *by force*. "Sign up for our implants or we'll let the Big Red Bugs crush you." Except they're not red while under Galaxy control but whatever. That's the whole point of the "Fold gates open everywhere and red sparks come out of them" after they log into the Vajra hivemind and suborns it. Macross Galaxy want to rule the galaxy. They're killing everyone who stands in the way of their plan to control the Vajra, with no mercy, and they've been doing it for years, whenever they can get away with it; and they've been literally puppeting their on civilians and soldiers to do it, with Brera having no choice but to obey their commands due to his implants, and Movie Grace being in the same boat. 

I may have missed that Mishima and Glass didn't know that galactic domination was the Galaxy goal, but they were just as ruthless in eliminating all the Galaxy agents aboard the colony in Sayonara no Tsubasa. And Mishima is a gleefully smug snake in both instances - the TV show where he assassinates Glass; and the Movie where he's basically running Glass' show. If Mishima figured out that galactic domination was on the table, I think he'd take it. 

(Edit: According to the summaries of his character in the novels on the Macross wiki, Mishima dreamt of becoming the "king of Macross" ruling the UN Spacy from a Macross-class battlefortress. He'd definitely co-opt any plans to rule the galaxy if he could.)

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I think you've forgotten that in the incident you're describing, the one who delayed the evacuation was LADY M.  

In 2067, the regional New UN Forces of the Brisingr globular cluster are trying and failing to defend their planets from an aggressive, expansionist empire driven by racism and nationalistic propaganda that's been waging a covert campaign of terrorist biowarfare against them undetected for years.  Their efforts are hamstrung by their troops falling victim to mind control via biowarfare agents, obsolete equipment, and an uncooperative PMC whose mysterious backer generally does everything she can to either hinder the New UN Forces in their mission or at least prevent them from being helpful until it's far too late.

Mind you, said expansionist empire was not a client state either.  They believe they were, but that's a badly skewed perspective colored by their nationalistic worldview and the gaiden manga reveals their grievances were nothing profound.  Their King was unhappy with the pace of his planet's economic development as it transitioned from the feudal agricultural economy it had before first contact to an interstellar economy, despite the fact that the entire cluster was in an economic slump.  He was also unhappy that he couldn't pull a legal Get Rich Quick scheme because trade in fold quartz was regulated by the New UN Government due to its potential applications in planet killing weapons of mass destruction.  And lastly, he was unhappy that the mutual defense agreement he agreed to was mutual... as in, he was unhappy he had to help defend his neighbors the same way they'd have to help defend him.  The 2060 war of secession was basically a tantrum thrown by an absolute monarch unused to being told "No" or having to negotiate with equals.  He propped up his regime with "master race" rhetoric and launched an invasion of his neighbors bankrolled through black market trade in fold quartz and using weapons purchased from an amoral corporation they had previously been doing entirely legal business with.

(Their links to the Anti-Unification Alliance are entirely cosmetic... being through a "punch clock" member of the SV-51 development team who defected to the UN Government before the war ended, and even that only comes via their links to Macross Galaxy's parent company General Galaxy.  The Epsilon Foundation has no direct link to Macross Galaxy or the old Anti-Unification Alliance.)

Given that the evacuation is actually underway as Elysion takes off (Chuck's family pauses in their packing to look up at the ship, IIRC), there was no delay in the evacuation. The NUNS plan was "evacuate the civilians and blow the towers, then wait for Windermere to show up". The Johnson/Lady M plan was "evacuate the civilians if you must, but Johnson takes the biggest, most hardened against mind control ship in the fleet, and goes after the enemy while they're recharging, instead of waiting here and getting ganged up on when everyone else gets mind controlled."

And Gramia's plan was "let's show off that our recharge period is nothing like what they expect, and I know Johnson he'll be showing up any second trying to take us on himself, so prepare to wave at him when we fold out." Which means that the NUNS plan would not have worked anyway, and Johnson's passing shot at the Sigur Berrentz was the one thing that prevented Windermere from mind controlling the whole garrison on arrival. 

And then NUNS guy basically tries to use the reaction warhead as a trap for the Sigur Berrentz, causes no damage except to variable fighters and civilians, and takes his fleet and orders his ships to leave without visually contributing anything to the actual defense of anyone, because he's verified the data in his model and now he's satisfied. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

and no... there's nothing like that in the movie at all.

In 2068, we have a rogue New UN Spacy fleet commander from a destroyed planet leading a very large paramilitary organization backed by large portions of the New UN Government and New UN Forces on a mission to hunt down and destroy a person or persons who have been manipulating the government and military from the shadows and without the public's consent or even knowledge and is opposed by forces loyal to that mysterious person.

It's also worth noting that at no point does anyone actually refute Cromwell's argument about Lady M's secret interference with the government, or dismiss his claims as crazy nonsense.  They just explain why Cromwell doesn't agree with Lady M's positions on various technologies and those all end up making Cromwell sound like a pretty reasonable dude.  (Esp. since the writers in this film forgot that several of the things they're depicting as banned AREN'T banned in previous titles and are shown and said to have the exact benefits he describes.)

Yes, But we're told flat out that "Lady M" only got back into contact in the 2060s after the Vajra left, as far as I remember - and Cromwell is blaming "Lady M" for decisions made in the 2020s, like the stopping of cloning and related research; and most of what he wants to unban were banned for serious ethical reasons or for being hideously dangerous. He's also being provided with "Slayer Valkyries" (a term that we've only seen attached to Anti-UN machines prior to Delta and Epsilon's involvement) from General Galaxy's skunk works shop (the Guld Works), the same company that owned the Galaxy fleet, built the VF-27, deliberately misled everyone as to its specs by showing off a fake prototype, and used said fake prototype in sabotage ops against other colonies). He's using a heavily modified NMCV that looks to be built partially of Battle Galaxy parts (given the big "21" on the deck, and the colors of the hull), 

The inference I draw from the whole incident is that Cromwell was facing an invasion, asked for MDE deployment release, was denied, lost his fleet and most of his flagship and ran off to sulk. Then he's introduced, possibly by a surviving officer, to Epsilon, who are willing to supply malcontents, and has large ins with General Galaxy and Guld Works, (I will note that most of the General Galaxy machines have debuted in the hands of rivals or even antagonists - YF-21 was Guld's baby, and he's effectively the bad guy in the first couple of parts of Mac+; VF-17 debuts with Gamlin, who is a jerk to Basara - deservedly but still; the VF-14 debuted in its Varauta-derivative form flown by Gigile; the VF-27 debuts in the hands of Brera, who is very much Alto's rival and one of the weapons of the Galaxy cabal; and all the Guld Works designs were used by Windermere or Heimdall. And several of the "unknown manufacturer" enemy mecha we see in the games have very very YF-21-like elements, like the Feios Valkyrie and the Variable Glaug. The only General Galaxy designs which *don't* debut as rivals are the VF-9 (because that's one of Max' rides when we first see it; and the VF-171 (because it's cannon fodder and the show only names like two pilots for the things.)

I am basically thinking that *Cromwell* didn't put together any vast conspiracies or anything. *Epsilon* did and made him a figurehead, and their rep was getting ready to jump ship and take the "biological components" of the Siren system with him when Cromwell has him shot. 

Also, Epsilon or the people behind them are probably keeping track of and recruiting people who're upset with how things are currently run, and who wish the 2051 coup had succeeded so the military was in charge, so they could nuke all the Zentraedi with MDEs and rule the galaxy. Which is where the scenes of pilots turning on their friends come from, the word was given, it's time to take over.

Either that or it's more VAR and mind control through song, rather than the mooks shooting each other down being actual conspirators. 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The idea that "Lady M" is a scapegoat is pretty obviously wrong on the face of it.  Cromwell secures a HUGE amount of backing from the Epsilon Foundation, New UN Gov't, and New UN Forces specifically to go after her.  He takes his whole force to the arse end of the galaxy specifically to go after Lady M.  If he were looking to do something like overthrow the New UN Government he is headed in the WRONG DIRECTION by like 75,000 light years.  He even sacrifices his own life and his flagship in his bid to free the galaxy from Lady M.  Also, it's Cromwell, not Sydney Hunt, who is the one keen to go after Lady M.  Hunt is just there to oversee testing of the Siren Delta System and gets killed when he tries to leave before the job is done.

 

Did you miss the point where after taking control of Windermere and the other Protoculture ruins, the gates open *everywhere*, just like they did when Galaxy were using the Vajra? Including Earth, Eden, and the Vajra homeworld? Because of the super fold gates, Windermere is *the* place to hold the entire galaxy hostage from. You go to earth, you subjugate the Earth government, and everybody goes "huh, let's band together and kick him off the planet", because since 2051 it's pretty much decentralized with autonomous member states. The fold gates from Windermere allow him to hit not just Earth, but all the important major worlds (We specifically see Eden, the only other world I remember that is capable of sending out its own colony fleets). 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

Spoiler

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

They believe they can use the Vajra Queen's zero time fold wave communications abilities *and her soldiers* to create a galaxy-wide collective consciousness *by force*. "Sign up for our implants or we'll let the Big Red Bugs crush you." Except they're not red while under Galaxy control but whatever. That's the whole point of the "Fold gates open everywhere and red sparks come out of them" after they log into the Vajra hivemind and suborns it. Macross Galaxy want to rule the galaxy. They're killing everyone who stands in the way of their plan to control the Vajra, with no mercy, and they've been doing it for years, whenever they can get away with it; and they've been literally puppeting their on civilians and soldiers to do it, with Brera having no choice but to obey their commands due to his implants, and Movie Grace being in the same boat. 

Granted, they do try to force the rest of humanity to join the collective consciousness they're constructing... but it's not "ruling the galaxy" in any sense, since there wouldn't be individuals anymore.  Their goal, which they allege to have also been the Protoculture's societal goal/ideal, is an emulation of the Vajra's collective consciousness in which the whole species has a single distributed intelligence and each individual organism is essentially one neuron in its vast fold wave network brain.

Macross Galaxy's leadership does a fair amount of inhumane stuff as part of its mandate to be a flying R&D facility for its parent company General Galaxy, but the extent to which the populace is being controlled varies from version to version and moment to moment as well.  It's indicated in Macross R that, for most intents and purposes, regular civilians in Macross Galaxy are mainly just using their own implants for augmented reality to make the living conditions in their efficiency-first emigrant fleet less unpleasant.  The Macross Galaxy Corporate Army is also similarly not operating under mind control normally.  It's only near the end of the story where the Galaxy fleet leadership goes for actually puppeting their populace around as they make their final Utopia Justifies the Means plays to create the implant network.

It's not the militarism you were banging on about earlier though, in fact the goal is the polar opposite... the total abolition of internal conflict by making all of humanity into a single consciousness.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I may have missed that Mishima and Glass didn't know that galactic domination was the Galaxy goal, but they were just as ruthless in eliminating all the Galaxy agents aboard the colony in Sayonara no Tsubasa. And Mishima is a gleefully smug snake in both instances - the TV show where he assassinates Glass; and the Movie where he's basically running Glass' show. If Mishima figured out that galactic domination was on the table, I think he'd take it. 

Apart from the fact that "galactic domination" isn't the Galaxy fleet's goal in ANY version of the story...

In all versions of the story, the publicly known reason for the Frontier and Galaxy fleets to be headed into Vajra space is a gold rush of sorts over fold quartz.  Both fleets have a nominally-altruistic ulterior motive, though.  Galaxy's goal is the realizaton of a galaxy-wide implant network to unite humanity into a single consciousness.  Frontier's was the fleet sponsor's private ambition to find a way to overcome fold faults so he could go tearing off across the galaxy to find Minmay.

Eliminating the Galaxy fleet's infiltrators isn't exactly an unreasonable act either... these were hostile forces who'd infiltrated the Macross Frontier fleet in the guise of refugees and were intent on hijacking the fleet because they'd lost the resources from their own fleet that they needed to complete their goal of seizing control of the Queen.  Mishima's ambitious, to be sure, and that gets used against him in every version of the story as well.  It makes him a Useful Idiot for the Galaxy fleet.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

(Edit: According to the summaries of his character in the novels on the Macross wiki, Mishima dreamt of becoming the "king of Macross" ruling the UN Spacy from a Macross-class battlefortress. He'd definitely co-opt any plans to rule the galaxy if he could.)

I would really, REALLY caution you against drawing inferrences like that... especally based on the Macross Wiki, which is a NOTORIOUSLY unreliable site.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Given that the evacuation is actually underway as Elysion takes off (Chuck's family pauses in their packing to look up at the ship, IIRC), there was no delay in the evacuation. The NUNS plan was "evacuate the civilians and blow the towers, then wait for Windermere to show up". The Johnson/Lady M plan was "evacuate the civilians if you must, but Johnson takes the biggest, most hardened against mind control ship in the fleet, and goes after the enemy while they're recharging, instead of waiting here and getting ganged up on when everyone else gets mind controlled."

Lady M interfered specifically and explicitly to slow the evacuation down.

The New UN Forces wanted everyone to be out of the area because they were planning to destroy the ruins with a thermonuclear weapon.  De-assing the area with the quickness seems like a pretty freaking reasonable thing to want if you're planning to let off a (clean) nuclear weapon in the area to deny an objective to the enemy... but Lady M poked her oar in, and people got hurt because of it.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

And then NUNS guy basically tries to use the reaction warhead as a trap for the Sigur Berrentz, causes no damage except to variable fighters and civilians, and takes his fleet and orders his ships to leave without visually contributing anything to the actual defense of anyone, because he's verified the data in his model and now he's satisfied. 

Ironically, this movie shows it would have actually worked just fine... Cromwell sinks the Sigur Berrentzs with much less powerful reaction weapons than Merin used.

He took the data he'd obtained and got out so the NUNS could use it to develop a countermeasure to the mind control, which they deployed... albeit too late once Heinz had the additional amplification of the Star Shrine.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Yes, But we're told flat out that "Lady M" only got back into contact in the 2060s after the Vajra left, [...]

Remember how I said the movie contains A LOT of contradictions and self-contradictory statements?

That's one.

They can never seem to settle on how long Lady M has been around in either version.  Even in the TV series, they flip flop between Lady M having been running Xaos since not long after the First Space War or having only just recently begun moving openly.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

He's also being provided with "Slayer Valkyries" (a term that we've only seen attached to Anti-UN machines prior to Delta and Epsilon's involvement) [...]

That is also incorrect.

The "SV" in the designation of the SV-51 and SV-52 does not stand for "Slayer Valkyrie".

It is a design office prefix in the Russian style, denoting that the design office and manufacturer of the SV-51 and SV-52 variable fighters is JSC Sukhoi Company of Russia.

The designation "Sv" (note lowercase v) came into use as a design code prefix for designs created by the General Galaxy SV Works design roup founded by former Sukhoi and Stonewell Bellcom designer Alexei Kurakin some time after he cofounded General Galaxy in 2017.  The term "Slayer Valkyrie" is connected only with Kurakin's SV Works group, as it reflected his view that an era of Valkyrie-on-Valkyrie combat would come again and established the General Galaxy SV Works to design VFs for that concept.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

[...] from General Galaxy's skunk works shop (the Guld Works), the same company that owned the Galaxy fleet, built the VF-27, deliberately misled everyone as to its specs by showing off a fake prototype, and used said fake prototype in sabotage ops against other colonies).

Nope, that's a different group.  

The Sv-154, Sv-262, and Sv-303 are products of the General Galaxy SV Works.

The VF-27 is a product of the Macross Galaxy Variable Fighter Development Arsenal group, codenamed "Guld Works".  

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

He's using a heavily modified NMCV that looks to be built partially of Battle Galaxy parts (given the big "21" on the deck, and the colors of the hull), 

Yeah, a lot of us thought that there was some connection there... but apparently we were all wrong.

Battle Astraea isn't a salvaged ship.  She was Cromwell's command back when he was a New UN Spacy fleet commander and he took her with him when he deserted, making their mutual disappearance out to be a fold accident.  This is mentioned in the movie.  Battle Astraea was apparently extensively retrofitted after her "disappearance".

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

The inference I draw from the whole incident is that Cromwell was facing an invasion, asked for MDE deployment release, was denied, lost his fleet and most of his flagship and ran off to sulk. Then he's introduced, possibly by a surviving officer, to Epsilon, who are willing to supply malcontents, and has large ins with General Galaxy and Guld Works, (I will note that most of the General Galaxy machines have debuted in the hands of rivals or even antagonists - YF-21 was Guld's baby, and he's effectively the bad guy in the first couple of parts of Mac+; VF-17 debuts with Gamlin, who is a jerk to Basara - deservedly but still; the VF-14 debuted in its Varauta-derivative form flown by Gigile; the VF-27 debuts in the hands of Brera, who is very much Alto's rival and one of the weapons of the Galaxy cabal; and all the Guld Works designs were used by Windermere or Heimdall.

You were OK up to the last comma in the first sentence.

Cromwell, facing an invasion, asked for permission to deploy MDE weapons against the invaders and was denied because of Lady M's prohibition on their use.  Fed up with Lady M, he later deserted along with his ship and its crew to create the organization Heimdall seek revenge against her.  While he was missing (officially), he obtained the support of the Epsilon Foundation and its subsidiaries and with their support was able to extensively retrofit the Battle Astraea and arm it with the latest unmanned fighters from the SV Works that the Epsilon Foundation subsidiary Dian Cecht manufacturered.  

The Epsilon Foundation is an enormous conglomerate that has subsidiaries in many different industries that manufacture everything from tourist-y knickknacks to personal electronics to military hardware.  Some of their products were designed by General Galaxy and are manufactured under license.  They sell to many different parties, including Xaos, the New UN Forces, and the Kingdom of the Wind.  They're basically Macross's version of Anaheim Electronics... a mega-conglomerate so big its right hand doesn't know what its left is doing, selling arms to all takers.

General Galaxy machines do tend to end up in the hands of rivals or antagonists, though that doesn't mean that flying one inherently means you're the bad guy.  The NUNS's main VF in the last two series is a General Galaxy product (VF-171 Nightmare Plus) and General Galaxy codeveloped the YF-24 with Shinsei Industry.  

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

And several of the "unknown manufacturer" enemy mecha we see in the games have very very YF-21-like elements, like the Feios Valkyrie and the Variable Glaug.

That's a product of them having heavier Zentradi design influences.

The Variable Glaug was based on a stolen VF-4 with heavy amounts of Zentradi technology included in it.  The Feios Valkyrie is actually derived from a stolen VF-11.  The YF-21 (and VF-22) are a VF based on the Queadluun-Rau during General Galaxy's contracted reconstruction of the Queadluun-Rau's factory satellite.

No definitive statement has been made as to who manufactures those enemy Valkyries, but there have been hints that it's one or more of the lesser known defense contractors like Critical Path (from VF-X2) making a quick buck on the side.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

The only General Galaxy designs which *don't* debut as rivals are the VF-9 (because that's one of Max' rides when we first see it; and the VF-171 (because it's cannon fodder and the show only names like two pilots for the things.)

There's actually quite a few more named VF-171 pilots thanks to the Macross Delta gaiden manga... a few of which are main characters.

 

40 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I am basically thinking that *Cromwell* didn't put together any vast conspiracies or anything. *Epsilon* did and made him a figurehead, and their rep was getting ready to jump ship and take the "biological components" of the Siren system with him when Cromwell has him shot. 

Also, Epsilon or the people behind them are probably keeping track of and recruiting people who're upset with how things are currently run, and who wish the 2051 coup had succeeded so the military was in charge, so they could nuke all the Zentraedi with MDEs and rule the galaxy. Which is where the scenes of pilots turning on their friends come from, the word was given, it's time to take over.

Alas, no... Ian Cromwell is explicitly the leader and mastermind of the organization, and Sydney Hunt is only ever described as his supporter.

 

  Hide contents

Did you miss the point where after taking control of Windermere and the other Protoculture ruins, the gates open *everywhere*, just like they did when Galaxy were using the Vajra? Including Earth, Eden, and the Vajra homeworld? Because of the super fold gates, Windermere is *the* place to hold the entire galaxy hostage from. You go to earth, you subjugate the Earth government, and everybody goes "huh, let's band together and kick him off the planet", because since 2051 it's pretty much decentralized with autonomous member states. The fold gates from Windermere allow him to hit not just Earth, but all the important major worlds (We specifically see Eden, the only other world I remember that is capable of sending out its own colony fleets). 

Nothing came out of them.

He didn't attack anywhere except in the Brisingr globular cluster.  The fold gates opening all over hell's half-acre seem to be nothing more than a consequence of opening the super fold gate to "Lady M".

It's very different from Macross Frontier's storyline, where the Vajra were explicitly used to attack Earth and other planets before Grace was defeated.

As we've seen rather graphically in this film, the Brisingr globular cluster is the bush leagues.  Cromwell, a commander from the central New UN Spacy, was able to table the Aerial Knights with one ship and half a dozen drones in barely enough time to boil an egg.  That doesn't mean he had the firepower or manpower to take on the entire rest of the galaxy, and he never once expresses any desire to do so.  His ONLY goal is to eliminate Lady M and free the galaxy from her influence so that the technologies that she's holding back can be used openly to improve humanity's lot.

 

 

 

 

[pengbuzz]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I would really, REALLY caution you against drawing inferrences like that... especally based on the Macross Wiki, which is a NOTORIOUSLY unreliable site.

Agreed; I've looked up stuff on Macross Wiki in the past, only to find out later that the information was either half-complete or just totally in error (on that note: Memory Alpha has become a waking nightmare due to all the stuff from Nu-Trek and ST:D, ST:P and Strange New Hair that people tried to shoe-horn into the wiki). 

To that end: if I need info on Macross, I either visit Macross Mecha Manual, or I just drop by here and ask you or the others (since I don't have access readily to Macross Chronicle per se). I've also learned not to read too much into stuff and try to make connections that aren't there; just because we think we might know what's going on doesn't mean that's what the folks making the varying series and movies have in mind (especially given the inconsistencies in the writing).

[darkranger12]

On 10/29/2022 at 7:04 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

  Hide contents

Macross Galaxy's leadership does a fair amount of inhumane stuff as part of its mandate to be a flying R&D facility for its parent company General Galaxy, but the extent to which the populace is being controlled varies from version to version and moment to moment as well.  It's indicated in Macross R that, for most intents and purposes, regular civilians in Macross Galaxy are mainly just using their own implants for augmented reality to make the living conditions in their efficiency-first emigrant fleet less unpleasant.  The Macross Galaxy Corporate Army is also similarly not operating under mind control normally.  It's only near the end of the story where the Galaxy fleet leadership goes for actually puppeting their populace around as they make their final Utopia Justifies the Means plays to create the implant network.

It's not the militarism you were banging on about earlier though, in fact the goal is the polar opposite... the total abolition of internal conflict by making all of humanity into a single consciousness.

 

 

Problem with  making all of humanity a single consciousness is...well...that they don't have any individuality after that. Maybe.

[JB0]

15 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Problem with  making all of humanity a single consciousness is...well...that they don't have any individuality after that. Maybe.

We are protoculture. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated . 

[Seto Kaiba]

10 minutes ago, darkranger12 said:

Problem with  making all of humanity a single consciousness is...well...that they don't have any individuality after that. Maybe.

Well, it's worked pretty well for the Vajra for millions of years and facilitated them developing into an intergalactic society completely free of internal conflicts.

Small wonder, then, that the ancient Protoculture idolized and sought to emulate the Vajra.  The Vajra weren't just more advanced than they are technologically, they had their societal sh*t together in a way the Protoculture very much didn't.  The delta wave device they build in the Brisingr globular cluster was an attempt to reach what they'd come to see as societal perfection and fix what they'd broken when their civil war got out of hand and led to a literal Forever War between two inexhaustible clone armies.  (And the Galaxy executives seem to have discovered the Protoculture's ambition, possibly from the New UN Gov't surveys of the ruins in the Brisingr cluster, and decided that Utopia Justifies the Means.)

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, it's worked pretty well for the Vajra for millions of years and facilitated them developing into an intergalactic society completely free of internal conflicts.

Small wonder, then, that the ancient Protoculture idolized and sought to emulate the Vajra.  The Vajra weren't just more advanced than they are technologically, they had their societal sh*t together in a way the Protoculture very much didn't.  The delta wave device they build in the Brisingr globular cluster was an attempt to reach what they'd come to see as societal perfection and fix what they'd broken when their civil war got out of hand and led to a literal Forever War between two inexhaustible clone armies.  (And the Galaxy executives seem to have discovered the Protoculture's ambition, possibly from the New UN Gov't surveys of the ruins in the Brisingr cluster, and decided that Utopia Justifies the Means.)

So the delta wave device was a desperate gambit by the Protoculture to undo their screw up, then? Sounds like a last-ditch effort to salvage stuff before the end to me.

Edited November 1, 2022 by pengbuzz

[Seto Kaiba]

38 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

So the delta wave device was a desperate gambit by the Protoculture to undo their screw up, then? Sounds like a last-ditch effort to salvage stuff before the end to me.

That's been the pattern with their dangerous toys since Macross Zero, at least.

Spoiler

The Protoculture left the Birdman on Earth and created a lineage of fold singers to maintain it as a failsafe to destroy the Human species utterly if it seemed on course to repeat the Protoculture's mistakes by achieving space travel before resolving its internal differences.  Humanity dodged that bullet TWICE.

The Fold Evil they created and then sealed on Uroboros was a temporal weapon based on the Evil-series bioweapons that Havamal believed had the ability to alter the past.  

Then there was the Protoculture's take on the instrumentality plan, with the creation of a massive telepathy engine the size of a star cluster that would link all sentient minds into a collective consciousness and forcibly bring an end to the war they started that was on course to outlive them.

(You could extend this to Macross 7 as well if you consider the Protodeviln to be at least part-Protoculture given that they're a "super-Zentradi" and the Zentradi were based upon the Protoculture's own genome.  Gepernich's whole master plan in Macross 7 is an attempt to avoid repeating the atrocities the Protodeviln committed before they were sealed, through the simple expedient of turning spiritia into a renewable resource and farming it.)

 

[RedWolf]

Around 8 years ago Macross/Battle Astrea disappeared. So Ian Cromwell went pirate stealing the ship and having Epsilon Foundation heavily modify it. Around 8-9 years ago Megaroad-01 managed to get into contact with Xaos Ragna branch hence when Lady M appearing on the scene according to Berger Stone in the TV series. However Cromwell went into a conspiracy rabbit hole blaming Lady M for AI laws and cybernetic laws. Also the conflict Cromwell is involved with may line up with events happening in Windermere. In 2060 according to the manga Macross Delta Black Wings the Aerial Knight were being deployed as reinforcement for NUNS against Zentradi. Which Gramia IV recalled as he declared war on NUNS as negotiations for exceptions to treaty restrictions for Fold Quartz mining fell through. And later the Brisingr Alliance NUNS dropped a MDE on Windermere. I can see possibly why Cromwell can be crossed with both Windermere and the NUN.

[Macross-Plus]

Pretty late to the party, But i finally got a chance to watch it last night. The F short was animated BEAUTIFULLY and i think the story was more coherent than the Delta movie. I still liked Zettai live, but i think it was lacking something, though i can't place what. Maybe it was the small amount of fighting? I also like Ranka's new design, I think the longer hair looks really nice. There were also many parts of Zettai that I found were strong too, and I liked that they went back to Freya's hometown and explained where her parents were during all of this. Though, I wish there was more time for Yami_Q_ray to develop, I thought that it could have been a really strong villian if it was given more time/development. I'm typing this out pretty quick so i'll probably flesh out my thoughts later. Overall though it was a good watch. 

[Bolt]

On 10/31/2022 at 4:25 PM, darkranger12 said:

Problem with  making all of humanity a single consciousness is...well...that they don't have any individuality after that. Maybe.

Which doesn't make us human anymore. Emulating an alien, insect like race just wouldn't fly  And as the leadership of Galaxy was bent on this plan, who was going to play the role of "queen" for wanna be Vajra humans? Me thinks Galaxy leadership was intending to fill that role. Ruling over drone humans kinda sounds like they wanted complete domination "for the sake of peace". The problem with the Protoculture's efforts to do the same , was that it came from desperation. Trying to fundamentally change the consciousness of a species is either evil or desperate. Even if Galaxy was trying to stop conflict and bring about insect utopia, it was wrong and they were the bad guys.

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/1/2022 at 7:49 AM, RedWolf said:

Around 8 years ago [...]

It's worth remembering that Absolute Live!!!!!!, like the Macross Delta TV anime, contains many inconsistencies regarding Lady M and when she became active on the interstellar scene.  It veers back and forth between "Lady M has been working behind the scenes since the end of the First Space War" and "Lady M only showed up after the events of the Macross Frontier series" without any apparent rhyme or reason... and the movie adds even more problems with inconsistencies regarding events in Macross Delta itself.

Spoiler

There is even a fun line from Berger Stone in the TV anime that suggests Lady M is the actual creator of the Siren Delta System.

 

4 hours ago, Macross-Plus said:

[...] and I liked that they went back to Freya's hometown and explained where her parents were during all of this.

We actually already knew it... Freya mentions in the very first episode of Macross Delta's TV anime that she's the ward of the village chief, and that she ran away from home due to him pressuring her to get married.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

Which doesn't make us human anymore. Emulating an alien, insect like race just wouldn't fly  

Well, we'd still be biologically human... but this is a transhumanist group who've already elbow deep in Hans Moravec's philosophical quandries about the nature of artificial intelligence and the nature of postbiological humanity, chasing what was apparently the ancient Protoculture's definition of societal perfection to avoid what they saw as the inevitable self-destruction of the species if they didn't.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

And as the leadership of Galaxy was bent on this plan, who was going to play the role of "queen" for wanna be Vajra humans?

The Vajra Queen.  That's why Grace (TV) or the Cyber Nobles (Movie) connect themselves directly to the Vajra Queen in order to gain access to its ability to coordinate and route fold wave communications on a galactic scale.  Trying to do it with a human brain would cause a "your head 'a'splode" rather like what the projected outcome of activating the Delta Wave System was and no computer was up to the job.

[davidwhangchoi]

i forgot to ask this question after watching:

What happened to Ernest Johnson? I didn't see him this time around

[Seto Kaiba]

4 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

i forgot to ask this question after watching:

What happened to Ernest Johnson? I didn't see him this time around

Ernest Johnson was written out of Absolute Live!!!!!! because his voice actor Unshou Ishizuka passed away back in August 2018, about six months after Passionate Walkure came out.

The in-universe reason for his absence - and that of his ship - is that Xaos is still repairing the battle damage the Macross Elysion sustained 13 months earlier during the events of the previous movie's climax.  As a result, [...]

Spoiler

[...] when Heimdall attacks and occupies Windermere IV in October 2068 it's Max's Macross Gigasion that becomes the new Xaos flagship by dint of having rescued both Walkure and Delta Flight.

Ernest Johnson likely spent the entirety of the second movie's events grumbling miserably on the bridge of the Elysion because the ship wasn't combat-worthy and his ship's relatively meager fighter complement had gone to Windermere IV.

 

[davidwhangchoi]

42 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Ernest Johnson was written out of Absolute Live!!!!!! because his voice actor Unshou Ishizuka passed away back in August 2018, about six months after Passionate Walkure came out.

The in-universe reason for his absence - and that of his ship - is that Xaos is still repairing the battle damage the Macross Elysion sustained 13 months earlier during the events of the previous movie's climax.  As a result, [...]

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[...] when Heimdall attacks and occupies Windermere IV in October 2068 it's Max's Macross Gigasion that becomes the new Xaos flagship by dint of having rescued both Walkure and Delta Flight.

Ernest Johnson likely spent the entirety of the second movie's events grumbling miserably on the bridge of the Elysion because the ship wasn't combat-worthy and his ship's relatively meager fighter complement had gone to Windermere IV.

 

Oooo That's sad to hear.

Well, thanks for the info and makes sense now.

[SebastianP]

On 11/7/2022 at 6:03 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

Ernest Johnson was written out of Absolute Live!!!!!! because his voice actor Unshou Ishizuka passed away back in August 2018, about six months after Passionate Walkure came out.

The in-universe reason for his absence - and that of his ship - is that Xaos is still repairing the battle damage the Macross Elysion sustained 13 months earlier during the events of the previous movie's climax.  As a result, [...]

  Hide contents

[...] when Heimdall attacks and occupies Windermere IV in October 2068 it's Max's Macross Gigasion that becomes the new Xaos flagship by dint of having rescued both Walkure and Delta Flight.

Ernest Johnson likely spent the entirety of the second movie's events grumbling miserably on the bridge of the Elysion because the ship wasn't combat-worthy and his ship's relatively meager fighter complement had gone to Windermere IV.

 

Actually... 

Spoiler

 I'm pretty sure the Elysion is actually present for the final battle, as a ship with the right coloring and what looks like the right number is there during the "let's shoot all the macross cannons at once" scene. You can see it clearly just after the ships transforms.

You can *also* in that same shot see one of the visual glitches of this movie, namely that Gigasion's carriers don't have numbers for most of the movie - and then suddenly, a few seconds later in the scene, they actually do. 

The presumed Elysion on the far left; Gigasion's port arm not having any numbers also visible. 

A few seconds later, right before the guns fire, Gigasion's left arm has a number, what looks like CV/C-100

A number for the other carrier is in this frame, but I can't make it out. It could be CV/C-110, but I really can't tell. A few moments later, that carrier is severely damaged as an Uraga crashes into it, right over where the deck number is. 

All told, I have indications from tactical readouts that at least nine "Macross-class" ships were present at Alfheim, and at least eight made it to Windermere, with eight being the most that I think were ever in one shot together.

(It might also not be the Elysion, as we see that very briefly at the start of the movie undergoing repairs, but they could have expedited them. Who knows.)

 

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

10 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Actually... [...]

The film's liner notes confirm that the Macross Elysion is immobilized by the damage it sustained in the previous film, so that's probably not the Elysion.

They probably reused the Macross Elysion CG model for one (or more) of the other ships of the same class in the background, expecting it would be too indistinct for the audience to notice.  The same way fans were probably not supposed to notice the Battle Astraea appears to be a modification of the Battle Galaxy CG model that didn't change its hull number or any number of other subtle reuses of CG models and textures for same like that poor VF-0A pilot Tim Baker who gets killed three or four times in Macross Zero.

[SebastianP]

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The film's liner notes confirm that the Macross Elysion is immobilized by the damage it sustained in the previous film, so that's probably not the Elysion.

They probably reused the Macross Elysion CG model for one (or more) of the other ships of the same class in the background, expecting it would be too indistinct for the audience to notice.  The same way fans were probably not supposed to notice the Battle Astraea appears to be a modification of the Battle Galaxy CG model that didn't change its hull number or any number of other subtle reuses of CG models and textures for same like that poor VF-0A pilot Tim Baker who gets killed three or four times in Macross Zero.

Yeah, reuse is a definite thing. It was to the point where they didn't bother even putting a number on the 3D Uraga model and just wrote "NUNS" on the bow flight deck so they didn't have to bother... (and then there's the scene in the first Frontier movie where they're panning through the fleet tactical display and the same Northampton shows up in at least three different places, unless it basically teleported to get from where it was last seen to where it's seen next.)

Macross movies are *probably* not supposed to be enjoyed in the format of frame by frame analysis, but how *else* am I going to find out how many gun turrets they stuck on the ships? Especially since they don't bother even describing the ships in the side materials anymore.

The weird part to me is how they literally appear to have gone "oops, we forgot to put flight deck numbers on the Gigasion" when they got to the scene where it shoots the main gun.

Also, one of these days I'm hoping we get a *non* homogenous fleet of Macross-type vessels, where there's multiple different types of Macross ships on screen. Having nine Macross ships show up for the battle and they're *all* Elysion-types? Or the multiple Quarters Sayonara no Tsubasa? Laaaaaazy. They could have added some Quarters to the Xaos fleet IMO, or some older Macross types to the SMS fleet.

(and if anyone ever drops a licensed book with *believable* information for *all* the ships shown in 3D macross - as in, not completely at odds with the what's actually shown on screen - I'll be all over it). 

 

 

[pengbuzz]

On another note, I found this online and nearly died laughing:

Spoiler

 

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Yeah, reuse is a definite thing. It was to the point where they didn't bother even putting a number on the 3D Uraga model and just wrote "NUNS" on the bow flight deck so they didn't have to bother... (and then there's the scene in the first Frontier movie where they're panning through the fleet tactical display and the same Northampton shows up in at least three different places, unless it basically teleported to get from where it was last seen to where it's seen next.)

Yeah, the decision to make generic hull textures instead of individually numbering each ship was probably for the sake of the production crew's sanity, and becuase they've gotten a fair amount of ribbing over how many times CV-404 got sunk during Macross 7.

 

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The weird part to me is how they literally appear to have gone "oops, we forgot to put flight deck numbers on the Gigasion" when they got to the scene where it shoots the main gun.

There's always those glamour shots where they spend a little more on the detail because they know they're going to be using it in commercials, product packaging, eyecatches, etc.

 

3 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Also, one of these days I'm hoping we get a *non* homogenous fleet of Macross-type vessels, where there's multiple different types of Macross ships on screen. Having nine Macross ships show up for the battle and they're *all* Elysion-types? Or the multiple Quarters Sayonara no Tsubasa? Laaaaaazy. They could have added some Quarters to the Xaos fleet IMO, or some older Macross types to the SMS fleet.

Well, that's probably got a lot to do with the protagonists being from a PMC rather than the New UN Forces.

Like Movie!SMS, Movie!Xaos seems to exist at this weird intersection of resources and personnel levels where they have just enough people to properly man one medium-sized ship but so much money that they can afford to make that one ship a Macross instead of hiring more people and operating more flexibly from two or more smaller and less costly ships.  So when the cavalry arrives at the end to help save the day, it's literally a bunch of that one class of ship because that's all they have because they spent beyond their means to get that one big ship as their headquarters.  So much so in the Delta TV series that Xaos ran out of money almost immediately when Ragna was captured and removing all the Epsilon Foundation tech from the Elysion would've taken more than the company's yearly operating budget.

(Made even weirder by the fact that, in the Macross Frontier TV series, the Macross Quarter didn't even belong to SMS.  It was a Frontier NUNS prototype on loan to SMS the same as the VF-25s.)

 

4 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

On another note, I found this online and nearly died laughing:

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This is why it's so important to get treated for anxiety disorders... otherwise you end up worrying about things that have no realistic chance of ever happening.