Mr March

Macross Zero predates Code Geass, so they likely got the idea of wheeled mecha from somewhere else. Perhaps Dream Pod 9's Heavy Gear. I think the wheels were actually a method to help make the Destroids practical again. The original destroids seemed slow and stationary, not much good unless they appeared in large numbers. It was likely more practical to simply build more valkyries. I think the idea of a more maneuverable Destroid on wheels didn't strike the creators until Macross Zero, hence why there were no destroids in Macross Plus or Macross 7. We didn't see such machines until much later in the franchise. I suppose your theory would work as an in-universe explanation.

Made a little picture for comparison Destroid Cheyenne and Destroid Cheyenne II

Good trivia. I've updated the Macropedia and VF-27 entires on my website. Thanks to you both.

Correction noted. Thanks to you both.

Suzuran Because some people run websites and have their hard drives filled with psd files, tiffs, scans and screenshots with no space for downloading episodes of anime. And it sounds to me like someone is fishing for a fight, in which case I'm not interested. Chronocidal That's the one! Indeed, totally unwatchable. I lasted about 30 seconds before stopping. I couldn't believe it. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the fan sub groups that have been doing Frontier so far. They might not be the most accurate, but at least they are readable and enjoyable.

This is my fear as well. All these quickie subs are fine to accommodate my impatience. But once Macross Frontier finishes, I'd like to have access to a complete series of the Shinsen subs so I can re-watch the whole series and pick up everything that was initially lost in translation

LOL That's alright. Not everyone knows about my website.

Information noted. I'll add it to the entries. Thanks Sulendil Ang

Actually, the Macross series are very consistent when describing the differences between Zentradi/Meltrandi fleets and main fleets, so I'd definitely stick to what was said in context. And quite frankly if a reaction bomb can damage a Protodeviln, the Mobile Fortress cannon is gonna lay some serious hurt on any of them. Anyway, it’s just my opinion and that's how I see it. As for tactics, that's an unending point/counter point argument. Neither side has an ultimate strategy and for every tactic, there is a counter. Sivil or Gavil start skirting aboard ships to suck spiritia and the Zentradi simply use bait ships as traps. The Protodeviln change up and then the Zentradi change up, over and over until the battle ends in Zentradi victory The Protodeviln require a vast amount of spiritia to power their abilities and if there are no easily accessible sources, the must expend to gain it. This is why the handful of Protodeviln required the Supervision Army to war upon the Protoculture. As powerful as they may be, the Protodeviln can’t win on their own, they are not inexhaustible and time is never on their side. All kinds of scenarios can be envisioned to grant advantage to one side or the other, but I don't see how that's conclusive. In my opinion, I'm assuming a single engagement without the benefit of outside resources; the Macross series scenario. One Zentradi main fleet of 5 million ships and their troops/mecha vs. the 7 Protodevlin and their 70,000 strong Varauta fleet. The Zentradi don’t get their Factory Satellite or other main fleets, the Protodeviln don’t have their spiritia farms, Supervision Armies or the help of the Protoculture directive. IMO, it’s fairest most realistic scenario if the two were to fight and each side has to make due with what they got. I'm sticking with Zentradi. YMMV.

I've been patiently waiting to see more of Revoltech's Aliens line, ever since I saw that box cover. Come on Kaiyodo, give us some love!

I understand what you mean. Someone just posted a type of fan sub of episode 17 on veoh that I've never seen before. Oh gawd, was it awful. I couldn't watch it! Over half the screen was covered in song subtitles and I couldn't tell the difference from the lyrcis over the dialog! I hope a different group is doing episode 17. I REALLY hope

I would think they can. Otherwise what point would they have for energy fields or regeneration abilities to protect themselves? The ships in the Zentradi fleet don't need reaction weapons. They have super dimension energy cannons, just like the ones seen in SDF Macross and DYRL. Plus they have Gorg Bodolzaa's Mobile Fortress gun, which was pretty much a grand cannon. Like I said, the Protodeviln expend spritia in everything they do, even doing nothing; it's their sustenance. Constant output requires constant input. Even if we were to assume the Zentradi couldn't actually kill the Protodeviln, they could exhaust the Protodeviln into an inert state. Probably much like the anima spiritia did, without requiring millions of ships As for Exedol, the Macross series have shown it's best to take what he says in perspective. I don't specifically remember Exedol saying a main fleet, but if he did, I guess that's the end of my theory

I understand. Actually, it's interesting but don't you think the "Reaction" symbol is used much like a radiation symbol in Macross Frontier? Like episode 17, when we saw the reaction warheads go off, the radar screens showed the explosion effects and had a big "reaction" symbol over the area. It looks like a radiation symbol to me

Nope, already covered that in an earlier post. I agree the spiritia black hole is the coup de grace, but the battle would be over long before that outcome, as I mentioned earlier. With all the spiritia from millions and millions of people lost in the Megaroad-13 fleet, the Macross 5 fleet (which had THREE City ships) and all the Macross 7 casualties, the Protodeviln still lacked sufficient spiritia until Basara's screw up. And the only reason the Protodeviln captured such spoils was because once they destroyed the paltry UN Spacy forces, it left millions of helpless civilians trapped in nice big space domes reading for crackin' In the Protodeviln vs. Zentradi main fleet scenario, there would be no such spoils; no civilians; no fish in the barrel; no conveniently helpless non-combatants. This would leave the Protodeviln fighting tooth and nail for scraps of spiritia in an engagement requiring constant, large-scale expenditure. Gepernitch would be exhausted long before he could ever hope to amass the millions upon millions of Zentradi necessary for a spiritia black hole. And given the scenario, the Protodeviln would need whatever spiritia they could obtain just to match what they expend. As I said, every which way I work it, the Zentradi prevail. There's just too many.

I also get what you and others are saying, but it's not a question of invulnerability, since the Protodeviln are not invincible. The Protodevlin weaken and perish without spiritia; hence, they are not invulnerable. Without anima spiritia, conventional victory against the Protodeviln simply requires a disproportionately large force. Not with 10,000 men could you do this, LOL Ordinarily in sci-fi, such a ridiculously large conventional force doesn't exist. But thousands of such forces exist in Macross; Zentradi main fleets! I acknowledge the Zentradi themselves would supply spiritia for the few Protodeviln to absorb. But as I've tried to explain, this scenario has the Zentradi engaged in a non-stop battle against the Protodevlin. That's 7,500,000,000 Zentradi against 7 protodeviln. Once battle begins, the Zentradi have sufficient resources to constantly fight indefinitely. For every one Zentradi whose spiritia is absorbed, the Protodeviln suffer thousands upon thousands of attacks at the same time; no pause, no quarter. The Protodeviln simply don't have numbers nor time to absorb that many enemies in the midst of combat. What's more, the Zentradi can bring to bear a level of firepower thousands of orders of magnitude greater than any attack the Protodevlin were subjected to in Macross 7, requiring the Protodevin to function at their maximum to fight the Zentradi. Without sufficient spiritia, all the Protodeviln weaken and in this scenario the Protodeviln simply couldn't replenish their spiritia fast enough to replace what they'd expend fighting the Zentradi. At the beginning of such a contest, the Protodeviln have a huge advantage, inflicting disproportionate losses upon the Zentradi and even initially gaining spiritia. But very quickly, that equation changes. A disproportionately greater amount of spiritia is required to defeat a disproportionately larger adversary in a disproportionately lengthy engagement. Like I said, Protodeviln exhaustion is inevitable. It's a time vs. gain/loss equation. That's a formula that vastly favours the Zentradi. The fight would be a war of attrition and in such a contest, the Zentradi win.

Fade Rathnik That's a pretty specific description. I'm not sure how much we can divine about the function of reaction weapons. But I will agree with you that without doubt OverTechnology physics and super dimension energy are involved. As I said above, most energy-based OverTechnologies seem tied to super dimension space/energy in some fashion (super-dimension-energy cannons, reaction engines, fold systems, barrier systems, etc). Your theory does combine a few known, but vaguely described elements of OverTechnology. We know thermonuclear reaction engines are "extremely efficient", so the power of reaction weapons may likely enjoy such highly efficient detonations, owing to their far great power than nuclear weapons. Also, your theory combines that fact that he big warships use super-dimension-energy as a destructive force, so reaction weapons may indeed utilize that same energy. Sumdumgai It's never been stated reaction weapons are radiationless. However, if they are fusion weapons (which has been used to describe reaction technology, see official literature) then reaction bombs would likely be much "cleaner" than nuclear weapons. Still, a certain amount of radiation is inevitable from most high energy reactions.

Great animated gif. Thanks for sharing. It always surprises me the Macross goodies people have on their hard drives. Here's a 128 wide version for use on MW:

Like I said, I don't see it happening. It would literally take years for Sivil to even attempt to to absorb spiritia from a fleet of five million warships and she wouldn't have the time. And the Protodeviln were never invincible. The chronology specifically states during the civil war/invasion era of the Protoculture the Zentradi were only partially successful in fighting the Protodeviln because their non-interference directives against the Protoculture hampered their ability to fight effectively. Without that caveat, the scales we're dealing with are way beyond what the Protodeviln could hope to defeat. Sure Britai's Adoclass fleet would probably suffer defeat, much like other small fleets such as Macross 7. They simply wouldn't don't the firepower. One or two super dimension energy cannons isn't going to be that effective. But 5 million? That's a whole other story. Besides, Varauta 4 and most of the Protodeviln would be wiped out in the first strike anyway. Whatever Varauta forces remained would be lambs to the slaughter.

I love this series. Kawamori, you sneaky bastard!

Gubaba Just my opinion, but I don't see it happening. The vast majority of Varauta forces where just mind controlled humans and Zentradi. There's no "ejecting cockpits" from Zentradi mecha , the Varauta are the ones vastly outnumbered and the Zentradi have nothing holding them back this time. Put it this way: if a Zentradi main fleet appeared in orbit of Varauta 4 like they did around Earth, there would be no kidnapping or mass captures, no time to amass spiritia farms or spiritia black holes. Any forces the Protodeviln did somehow manage to mind control in the middle of a battle (I'd like to know how that would even be attempted), the Zentradi wouldn't hesitate to count those compromised forces along side the corpses of the Gepelnitch and his gang. Like I said, most of the Macross villains are great if they have the numerical advantage and plenty of time to operate at their own discretion almost unhindered (which doesn't say much for the UN Spacy's "war strategies"). But throw them up against a wall with a Zentradi main fleet and suddenly they ain't looking so hot

I'm sorry to hear that. Shinsen subs are the best so far, IMO.

Actually, uncontrolled explosive weapons are much less dangerous than you might think. Due to the nature of an uncontrolled explosion, any potential target will only ever experience a maximum of half the total destructive effect of a reaction bomb, since one half of the explosion will always be exploding away from the target. Also, because most targets are small, they'd experience a much smaller fraction of that half of the explosive effect that is directed their way. Also, the destructive force of an explosion diminishes dramatically the further the target is from the center of the detonation. Lastly, in space there is no shock wave effect from a high energy detonation because there is no atmosphere; so any destructive force must be generated by the bomb itself. This is why the Destroid Monster had armor that was described as thick enough to survive a near hit from a reaction weapon. It's also why directed-energy weapons, bullets and missiles can be so deadly even though they aren't nearly as powerful as a reaction bomb; because they are projecting energy in a much more tightly focused attack that only needs to penetrate a far smaller surface area to be effective. Now, the official literature does state that Reaction Technology is far more powerful than nuclear reactions. The most powerful nuclear bomb ever conceived was 100 megatons. But even if we assume Reaction bombs are somewhere between two to ten times the destructive yield of the best nuclear bomb, the physics of an uncontrolled explosion still remain the same. Small targets like fighter craft flying sufficiently far enough away from the center point of a reaction bomb blast could suffer much less than 1% of the explosive yield of a reaction bomb. Bring OverTechnology like Energy Converting Armor into the equation and it becomes much easier to survive near hits from reaction bombs. As for how reaction bombs work, I've no doubt super dimension energy is involved, as it seems to be in virtually all OverTechnologies. Super dimension eneryg is likely what makes reaction bombs much more destructive than nuclear blasts.

The Protodeviln were not biological weapons and the genesis of the Vajra is still in question. So this thread is a little mis-stated. As Macross villains, the Zentradi are probably the most effective simply because of the ludicrous size of the Zentradi Army. Of all the Macross villains they've undoubtedly inflicted the most damage against our hero species, the humans (I suppose the Vajra is an open question, but I doubt their attacks will ever approach Space War I casualties). And when push comes to shove, no other Macross villain would stand a chance against a Zentradi main fleet, IMO. The Protodeviln, the Vajra, the Birdman...they were all quite deadly against the paltry forces of the UN Spacy. Some of these villains would probably even inflict heavy losses upon the Zentradi in any engagement (like the Protodeviln). But by almost any benchmark, the Zentradi forces are simply limitless. The Vajra appear to be equal in numbers to the NUNS/SMS. The Varauta fleet numbered 70,000. A Zentradi main fleet could afford to throw millions of ships and billions of mecha at any enemy and could afford losses in the hundreds of thousands. The Grand Cannon destroyed nearly a million Zentradi warships and they never even blinked an eye. With the forces of just one main fleet (of which there are several thousand), the Zentradi could launch an almost unending siege. Every other Macross villain couldn't hope to out last the Zentradi and would simply be exhausted. They'd fall even if they inflicted disproportionate losses upon the Zentradi in ratios as ridiculous as 100,000 zentradi losses to 1 protodeviln/vajra/birdman. Strains the mind a bit, don't it?

I must really be tired, because I'm genuinely laughing Yep, definitely time for sleep

That's unfortunate. I suppose they'll have to labeled something sufficiently generic, like "energy guns".