Mr March

I'd very much agree with Graham. Sometimes intriguing concepts can come from what seems like the most mundane technology. Try advancing current technology forward while keeping the fundamental technology the same and see what you get. It might be pretty damn cool. Take gunpowder ballistics, a technology that's been around for hundreds of years yet we're still using it. What happens if your future technology can get bullets and shells going tens of thousands of meters per second rather than just the few thousand we're limited to today? How about faster, maybe even minor fractions of the speed of light. That would make quite a deadly weapon and its far more plausible than some phasing energy nonsense. Also, I'd do research and concentrate on real terminology. Proper use of scientific and astronomical terms like kiloton (for measurable explosive yields) or light minute (a much more relevant method for distances in space) can bring a great deal of legitimacy to any science fiction story. Especially since so much science fiction doesn't even use proper terms or invents ridiculous fictional names when they are not needed. You don't need a character to explain a city was destroyed with a 1,000 babbleton explosion when you can just have them use 25-50 kiloton bomb to achieve the same result. Even Macross is guilty of this, using ridiculous distances like Misa quoting 280,000 kilometers for enemy distance when a simple term like one light second will do. You'd be surprised just how much real world science can be written into sci-fi if one just does a little research.

Perhaps a small element in the stories, if you're refering to less advanced societies The Culture interacts with (more specifically, Contact). But from the description it sounds more involved than that, so I was thinking it was one of the few Culture books I've not yet read. I think the only one I've not gone through is Inversions. Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, Excession, State of the Art and Look to Winward I've all read.

Most responses to this thread have already covered the major points, but I'll embelish some considerations that I don't think have been discussed enough. A simple explanation might be battroid size is determined by the nature of the aircraft design. If you want to build an aircraft to fulfill certain operational needs, it will need to be a certain size. So your fighter may be big or small by virtue of what aircraft technology you have, what aircraft know-how you currently possess and what you need the aircraft to do. If you build an F-16 sized variable fighter, you're going to have a battroid mode that's scalable with a 14.8 meter long craft. If you build an F-14 sized variable fighter, obviously the battroid mode is going to be much larger because the craft is 18.6 meters long. This is all ignoring transformation schemes of course. So bascially, it has nothing to do with continuity. Modern militaries use fighter aircraft of all different sizes and they don't necessarily follow a linear increase/decrease in size as decades go by. Macross actually features a better continuity than most giant robot franchises like Gundam because variable sizes for weapons of warfare is much more akin to what happens in a real military over time.

Kelly Hu would be my first choice for the lead in a live action GITS. As far as directors, my top picks would be something like Wong Kar Wai, Danny Boyle, David Fincher or David Cronenberg.

I own two Yamato 1/48 scale valkyries. A VF-1S and a VF-1J. I also owned the 1/48 VF-1A and the 1/60 VF-1S until I sold them. I've never had a part break or anything else go wrong on any of the Yammies. They've been handled, posed into numerous positions and transformed a dozen times each. There was even a time when my 1/48 VF-1S fell about a meter from a custom made stand and landed on it's wing. Thing is as sturdy and undamaged as it was when it came out of the package. They are not flimsy models and they hold themselves together quite well. They are indeed toys. HOWEVER, they are not childrens toys and won't stand up to a beating like most 13-and-under products.

Painful...extremely

Where in the description does it say the NV is one of a kind? The ship is a class, like all the Zentradi vessels. Even Bodolzaa's flagship was not unique (I believe it's stated at around 1000-2000 vessels). Not seeing this one...

Sunshine

The VF-1J is properly described in it's main entry so I'm not sure how that little CAG error creeped in. I often bounce from profile to profile while I'm working because it maintains my interest and allows me to act on inspiration for given piece of writing, which doesn't necessarily wait. I'll take note and make the correction. This one's easy to fix.

That is damn bizzare. Every picture on page 149 is for the Prometheus *except* that one, single drawing. Messed up. One of the hazards of working with japanese source material. I'll make a note and get it corrected.

That must be Inversions, I think it's the only Culture book I haven't yet read.

1) All the colors schemes are created using stills from the anime (non-AnimeFriend episodes, whenever possible). So yes, the colors are official. The description states specifically that the link is just subtle and suggestive and is by no means official trivia. 2) Yes, those are bays from the Prometheus, taken from the prometheus line art page in Macross Perfect Memory. 3) The M3 is trying it's hardest to avoid the continuity errors and questionable official explanations given to reconcile SDFM to DYRL to the Macross sequels. So no explanatory statements regarding SDFM vs. DYRL will be made. So glad you've no major issues at this point.

I love the e-mail response. Classic

Does the opening not explicitly state that the site is focused on the five shows mentioned? I think it's pretty clear. Besides, given the intensity of fan opinion, I certainly don't want to turn away any fans by making some blatant anti-M7/MII statement, especially since that isn't my position on the site anyway. The official response is, I will be including some small amount of M7/MII material, I will host any submissions for entries I can't/have little interest in and anything is possible from there. The M3 isn't some official site or defacto resource (though I do appreciate fans who think the quality of my work is certainly worthy of that honor), it's just an attemtp to do good by Macross mecha, something that's lacking on the internet. But I can't do it all myself, so limits need to be set. That's all.

Oh, that. It's a good question, so I hope you don't mind if I take a little extra time to answer your question and provide some clarification for anyone interested. Telling it straight out, there is really no policy for the M3 aside from personal preference. In other words, the Macross mecha I like are the Macross mecha that will be included on the website. That's pretty much it. This is no doubt a controversial position, but keep in mind that there is just one person doing this: me. Though briscojr84 has provided most of the raw scans, I do scanning work myself, I clean ALL the scans, seperate/organize/resize all the pictures, color each picture, and I write each profile. It's no small amount of work and honestly I just don't have the time to do everything. So priorities need to be set and stuff like Macross 7 and Macross II are simply low-priority items...which is a nice way of saying I'm really not interested in them and won't be doing them. Also, there is the not-at-all-small issue of source material. In order to get these large pictures looking as good as they do, it's necessary to obtain very high resolution scans of the line art in lossless file formats like .tiffs or .pngs. That means 99.99% of the line art on the internet is utterly uselss because A) it's way too damned small and B) nearly all the line art online is in lousy .jpeg formats (which are brutal on line art). So basically, the only option is to scan source material, save it in lossless files like .tiffs, and then work on them in Photoshop CS until such time as they are ready to be re-sized down to 800 and saved as gifs. This also means I'm dependant upon Macross books that I, and others assisting me, own. Right now, I have very little Macross 7 reference, nothing for Macross II and I'm not at all inclined to obtain anything for either. I figure there are more than enough Macross fans that if someone really wants colored line art for M7/MII included on the M3, I can provide primers on how to do the coloring (which is really simple) and they can do the work. MacrossWorld members like grebo guru are a perfect example of a fan who obviously loves Macross 7/Macross II mecha and could submit profiles for the website if he was so inclined. Now, having said all that (*breathes*), there are "special projects" both in the works and on the horizon. Certain mecha from outside the shows I've chosen will find an entry on the M3 in a special features section. I don't want to be more specific because I really don't want to spoil what is going to be a very pleasant surprise for many different types of fans. Also, the odd mecha from Macross 7 may find it's way onto the M3 just because it's cool and I like it (which, I'm sad to say, will be a rare occurance). Something like the VF-11 Protect Armor or the VF-22 Sturmvogel are two of the only M7 mecha I like, so it's very likely I'm going to be working on those myself. Lastly, some M7/MII mecha might find their way onto a size comparison chart. There are numerous concepts I have for size comparison charts and as long as I can obtain the images I want for these charts, it's possible something like the Battle 7 or Macross Cannon may be included. Well, I hope that helps you and anyone else curious about the direction of the new site.

The index page is loading fine for me.

I'll go about doing a line of space between sections, but we won't be formatting further within the sections. Thanks for the feedback.

We'll see what we can do about the header bar. Doesn't appear to be a big problem. But to be honest, I'm really not concerned how the website will look at 800x600. By now, everyone should be running at 1024 or higher. Even my parents piece of junk is running at 1024x768. I also think the number of users running at higher end resolutions is more now than in the past and should be a bigger consideration than concern for really low end resolutions. As far as space, yes, I can see that perhaps a few lines might look a little different/better. I suppose it's whatever is preferable. Since several people like the idea of a bit more spacing, I'll go ahead and add a line of spacing inbetween sections. If it looks good, it'll be a simple matter to upgrade the old stuff.

I'd like to think of myself as a pretty hardcore Macross fan, but I'm not really sure I know the difference between "Macross according to Studio Nue" versus "Macross ala Big West." Is it something to do with the official explanations that I've created or the whole SDF vs. DYRL? thing? As for japanese fans, I doubt I'm going to get all that many japanese visitors. Probably just a lot of image pilferers taking my stuff for their own japanese language sites, which thankfully I won't see

Okay, are you talking about lines of space between "headers"? Is that the word you're looking for? Let me run an example just using the message board here and see if this is what you mean... So, is that what you mean by spacing? You want a line of space where I've indicated to seperate the "sections" not the paragraphs. Am I getting this right? On to your next points, no I will not be formatting the M3 like the MAHQ. I really don't like the narrow columns on the MAHQ nor having the pictures and text all on one column. On resolutions 1024x768 or higher, most of the browser window is empty space and I don't like that, especially for users like myself that run at 1280 or higher. ALso, many of the pages require too much vertical scrolling, so I'm keeping both columns intact to limit that. Lastly, the two columns are setup for a reason. One column is for art, the other is for text. I think so far most entries are working out brilliantly using the two-column setup and feature a minimum of vertical scrolling. I'll consider the line spacing, but the format is definitely staying put for now. It's the most efficient way to get the most of any given profile on a single screen without looking messy and I think the site works from as low a resolution as 800x600.

It's good that this project is still going. I'd love to see it when its complete.

Okay, I'm getting a little concerned here. This is the second time someone has mentioned spacing and paragraphs and I'm afraid I'm not seeing the problem being described to me. On my computer, the spacing is fine and the paragraphs are seperated by one line of space each, making them easily distinguishable from each other. As I test, I dropped down my computer resolution from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 and looked at the website. The spacing remains intact and the formatting looks good. It never becomes one, unspaced, breakless wall of text. Am I not able to see a major formatting problem? I'm not sure what the error is. If you could post a screen shot of what you see, maybe that would help. Perhaps there's some formatting issues on different browsers I'm not aware of, or the site doesn't work at certain resolutions. Just a little confused here.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I honestly don't discuss a lot of film on MW because it's not allowed. I wasn't trying to be mean. Now, if some of these reponses are to be believed, it appears something is going to change as far as MW policy about these types of topics. This is news to me. If they're going to let this topic stay open, I'll certainly join the discussion.

Yes, this is why I don't ever discuss the tons of films I see on MW. It never flies.

I don't mind him pushing technology. Even if the film sucks, at least it may spearhead a new format movement further along. Holography is eventually coming and I'd like to see it before I die, so anything that speeds the process up is a good move in my book. Film is dead.