Mr March

The result is looking very good. Well done!

If anyone can help, I'm looking for some colored pictures of any VF-25 Messiah schematics, preferably from magazines like Hobby Japan. Specifically, I need the "F" and "S" variant schematics to figure out the proper stripe patterns on the VF-25. Btw, I already have the Macross Frontier Archives and the YF-25 schematics from Hobby Japan (thanks go out to Zinjo) so please don't post those schematic pictures. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Appreciate the sentiment, but there's no need for any retraction. It's just discussion and not any kind of debate. Remember, you do raise some valid points that I happen to agree with in their specific context. It's perhaps best to reiterate that I don't believe the Valkyrie is impossible, only impractical in a probable future context. I think the biggest obstacles against the eventual realization of a Valkyrie are the need and/or will to do build one. Basically, we have to imagine a scenario in which the way warfare is conducted demands the use of a machine like the Valkyrie. That's not necessarily impossible to imagine, but it is very difficult to rationalize. A lot of circumstances need to occur to create a physical/financial/political/technological world in which a Valkyrie would be practical on a mass produced scale and most of those circumstances are not very likely to occur at all. What I love about Macross (and the real robot genre in general) is that an effort went into rationalizing why these machines would exist at all. Macross even goes a step further and acknowledges the impact of various modern technological trends upon it's own fiction, such as human endurance limiting flight maneuverability and the incursion of unmanned vehicles upon the face of future warfare. Now granted, Macross doesn't provide a very strong rationale, but then again, it is a 25 year old animated show made for youngsters who weren't thinking about physics, finances, politics and technology at their age Another way of looking at the Valkyrie (and strictly speaking, ANY sci-fi vehicle) is to examine the technology without the Valkyrie. What would someone build if the technology for "energy conversion armor" really existed? Would their first thought really be to build a giant transforming fighter plane? Probably not So what then would be the most likely implementation of ECA? Micro-missiles? Gravity control? And so on.

Wow, they look like the Rolling Stones

Ah right. Now I remember. Thanks Talos and Horatio. LOL, some draftsman must have been smoking something the day he made those

I just have to ask...where did that "broken leg" schematic of the VF-1 Valkyrie come from? I've seen that around for decades and always wondered who the heck came up with that.

The OP was pondering a way to make the Valkyrie practical without implying a caveat of many, many, many ad infinitum years of technological advancement (he even mentions conventional technology as a benchmark). As has been mentioned, arguing for an infinite time line for technological advancement is akin to simply accepting the caveat of magic hand-waving OverTechnology. That brings us right back to the beginning of any speculation and also removes any reason for doing so. I'd also like to reiterate several important points made earlier which were either not understood or simply missed. Our imperfect understanding of future developments in technology is not a one way street that inevitably favors realization of our dream machines. It is equally plausible (and in fact, MORE probable) that long before the incredible technology exists to build a transforming jet fighter the very idea of using a jet fighter will have long since been abandoned. Even the popular idea of the science fiction styled space fighter is suspect as a practical war machine thanks to the realities of space. This also goes hand in hand with singularities and the totally pervasive effect they would have on the way war will be fought. The more "possible future technology" one speculates, the greater likelihood that singularities will completely alter technology and warfare far from all we understand today...that applies to our modern fiction too. Think of it in terms of the sci-fi stories of old and their prognostications. How many actually hold up to the present? None of them do. That's because for every prediction past fiction got right, other predictions turned out wrong. We may think right now that fighters, helicopters and tanks are going to be around for a hundred years, a thousand years or ten thousand years when it's even more likely they'll become obsolete relics far sooner than we can imagine. In his 1933 The Shape of Things to Come, H.G. Wells predicted a world war that would feature the aerial bombing of cities, a technological development he found "unsporting". So too may future technology alter warfare to such a degree that the obsolescence of fighters, helicopters and tanks offends our romanticized fondness for these modern weapons. Lastly, I'd like to just say that examining the impracticality of a Valkyrie is not being a "naysayer". I think it's more than apparent the members participating here love Valkyries, my own love being rather blatantly apparent. Being pragmatic when discussing fiction is not a fault, it's a strength. The real robot genre itself was predicated by a creator unsatisfied with the simple explanation. Thinking critically about his favorite shows, he deconstructed them and then sought to rebuild them to achieve something greater. The point of this debate is not to stick our heads in the sand in favor of Valkyries or stomp our feet and pout about the impracticality of the Valkyrie. It's the debate itself that is the reward. The discovery of why things work the way they do and the exchange of interesting ideas. That is the essence of what makes this all worthwhile and is the birth of better fiction...or at least discussion such as this breeds an appreciation for better fiction, since most of us are perhaps destined to remain consumers rather than creators. Anyway, more food for thought

The current desired format for robotic warfare is definitely contemporary scale or smaller. And the smaller, the better. As far as I know, giant scale robotics are not on anyone's radar now or in the foreseeable future. If anyone is at all interested in how robotics are being used to conduct warfare, I highly recommend a book I read last year titled Wired For War by P.W. Singer. It's not an exhaustive, scientific analysis, but it is a great primer on what is happening right now in the robotic and military industries and the direction they are going for the future. I found it a real eye-opening read and rather inspiring for the imagination.

That actually brings up a good point about the Valkyries that I don't believe I've ever considered: how much can a battroid lift? Or perhaps it might be more precise to ask how much must a battroid lift/carry in order to function properly under maximum allowable stress? Even to get a battroid running would be a lot of structural stress. As you say, even a few pounds can be a problem for human-scale machines and with the Valkyries we're dealing in tons! This is to say nothing about the additional hardware that each Valkyrie has to be designed to handle. Once we add the stresses of operating with the Super and Armored hardware, it can get really problematic. That additional hardware adds a significant amount of weight and handling all that stress has to be accounted for in the basic design of the Valkyrie

While the weight and complexity of transformation hardware and robot mechanisms is a disadvantage, a Valkyrie would suffer other fundamental disadvantages compared to a dedicated vehicle (fighter, helicopter and tank). For a single vehicle to fulfill multiple roles (especially roles as functionally different as air vs. ground operations) would require basic design compromises that dedicated craft would not suffer. Most modern fighter craft aren't designed for low speed flight, but a Valkyrie would have to be. That means a compromised design of the wings and fuselage to accommodate both high and low speed flight, meaning more weight and complexity...meaning the Valkyrie isn't as good as a dedicated craft. One would also have to make space inside the craft for all the transformation hardware and robot mechanisms (as well as multi-role hardware) which means even greater design compromises. Another factor affecting the practicality of a Valkyrie that I don't think has been discussed is the all important factor of time. Building a Valkyrie would require many more times the design, manufacturing, assembly and testing time of conventional craft (as well as maintenance, which we have discussed). Particularly in a scenario of all-out-war where time is crucial I can't see the Valkyrie being anywhere close to a viable option for a warring nation. Your enemy could likely build ten conventional craft in the time it takes your nation to build one Valkyrie. Now don't get me wrong. The Valkyrie, as it is shown in Macross, is quite simply a military wet dream that successfully combines the fighter, helicopter and tank into one super-vehicle. But Macross as an anime has the virtue of ignoring all the implications of the technology it creates. And that's fine, because big giant robot shows are cool and we don't care about the rest (except as fanboy discussion, lol). But once we start talking real world, the practicality of the Valkyrie becomes highly suspect. While not necessarily impossible to ever realize, it's likely the Valkyrie will remain an anachronistic 20th century curiosity of the early robotics age. The Valkyrie is likely to be realized only long after fighters are obsolete and technology is so advanced and commonplace as to make the construction of the craft a hobby. Like steam powered space shuttles for the "what if" aficionado

I can't see it ever being practical in the sense of being deployed. I can see the technology eventually existing to actually build a Valkyrie, but not as any kind of practical product (and again, likely long after anyone would care about such ancient vehicles). Like eugimon and I have both said, any technology that can make a Valkyrie would simply make an existing conventional vehicle that much better.

I don't think I see Valkyries as an inevitable reality. In fact, it's quite possible that fighters, helicopters and tanks will be obsolete as war machines long before the technology exists to combine them all into a single transforming robot. Future singularities are bound to completely alter the dynamics of both technology and warfare in ways that we're not even capable of understanding as yet. The only thing that's inevitable is the introduction of robotics to warfare, the start of such an era is that which we are living in right now. If we dial it back a little from far future speculation and avoid the caveat of unlimited technological advancement (which would bring us right back to the point about the magic of OverTechnology), we could ponder "Valkyrie Practicality" in between now and some time in the future BEFORE singularities change technology (and thus warfare) beyond what we can understand today. From that assumption, it's easiest to understand the likely impossibility of Valkyries just by examining the reason why we build fighters, helicopters and tanks in the first place. These vehicles serve only a single purpose...to function as the simplest, most direct way to deliver a weapon into an enemy target. Weapon delivery systems...nothing more. For a Valkyrie to be in any way practical, it would have to be designed in such a way that it's incredible cost, maintenance, complexity, manufacturing, logistics, reliability and all other factors somehow justifies the Valkyrie ABOVE the those very same factors for a fighter, a helicopter and a tank. Not only that, but a Valkyrie would somehow need to maintain comparable performance to each individual competing war machine. Ergo, a Valkyrie Fighter must equal or exceed operational capabilities of the closest competing dedicated fighter (multi-role or otherwise). Also, that dedicated fighter would enjoy the same technology base as the Valkyrie. Same thing for the best competing helicopter and tank. How then is the Valkyrie going to function as a superior weapon delivery system when in order to function as all three vehicles must suffer design compromises to do so? The answer is the Valkyrie couldn't compete, which is why it wouldn't be practical. What I can see as an inevitability is some rich guy a couple hundred years from now building a Valkyrie because in his era combining transforming robots with ancient military vehicles is an anachronistic future hobby equivalent to what steam punk is to us today

Figured the Star Wars fans would appreciate this parody marriage of Jay-Z and the Star Wars Galactic Empire Galactic Empire State of Mind

Great looking schematics. Some of the best of the VF-1. Well done!

The coloring is done in Photoshop CS using layers and the multiply feature. Most colored art files I build have 6-10 layers on average and range from about 3-10 megs in size. I only use high resolution line art scans and typically work with an image that is no less than 2,500-3,000 pixels in it's largest dimension. High res scans make coloring easier and ensures the art always looks sharp and detailed when scaling it down to the typical 800-900 pixel size seen on the M3. Working in high res is also a wise future investment. With many business and home computer users quickly adopting the new 1920 x 1200 high definition standard, my high res sources files will allow the M3 to remain current as monitor resolutions increase in the years ahead. The VF-0D has simply been one of many difficult to obtain pieces of M0 line art. The FRONT VIEW BATTROID mode of the VF-0D has been particularly rare in print and has appeared frustratingly small on the page even when printed. Zinjo recently helped me obtain many more M0 drawings (that will appear in the next update), but even still I lack certain high res scans of M0 mecha including the VF-0D Front View Battroid. As long time visitors of the M3 can attest, accurate coloring of the Macross mecha is an ongoing, evolving process. Accurate online color reference for the Macross mecha is almost non-existent due largely to poor quality pictures suffering from saturation/contrast/compression problems. Even print color reference for Macross was rare, up until the publication of the Macross Chronicle. As Seto has mentioned, we work together on most MII mecha and he has also aided me with several other Macross mecha, typically relying on the Macross Chronicle as defacto reference.

Gasaraki had an interesting approach to introducing human piloted combat robots as something much smaller; an intermediary between enhanced-heavy infantry and a light armored fighting vehicle. That's not a bad concept, but not one without flaws. Again, any technology applied to a mecha would be applied uniformly across all military hardware. Which is always the big catch. I think Patlabor came up with the most semi-plausible introduction for a giant robot, which was to fight labor-related crime. Basically Patlabor got around the problem of implausible giant robots by creating a need for giant robot enforcement, which remains a rather unique approach. But again, it's unclear why it simply wouldn't be easier and more cost effective to build portable human-scale anti-labor arms for enforcement agencies. The anti-labor equivalent of an anti-tank rocket would suffice. And there are other non-lethal options as well. I can see bipedal robots having a role within combined arms. In fact, their introduction is inevitable. What I cannot see is bipedal robots replacing the tank or fighter as the current masters of their roles. If you can make a humanoid robot fly at Mach 2, you can make a fighter jet fly way faster. If you can make a humanoid robot immune to tank shells, you can build one helluva killer tank using the same technology. I can see a role for semi-human-scale heavy robotic infantry and more importantly, sub-human-scale robotic vehicles. But they wouldn't be the giants of our favorite animes or video games and they wouldn't rule the roost Of course, given enough technological advancement and time (specifically, allowing for an economic/industrial base of sufficient scale far beyond our contemporary age) all kinds of weapons far more complex and grand than even a giant bipedal robot will become the norm. Just as the complexity and cost of our modern tanks and fighters are far beyond the war machines of a thousand years ago, so are the ever more complex and costly weapons of war's future destined to become the norm.

If I were to add something like this to the M3, it would likely go in the "For Fans Only" section as another analysis-style article that is completely separated as fan speculation. Similar to the Thrust-to-Weight ratio chart and the Zentradi height articles. But going into this kind of technical analysis is really beyond my skills. I'm not an engineer or scientist, I'm trained in finance. However, if more knowledgeable fans want to write speculative scientific analysis of Macross, I would certainly make a home available for such valuable topics on the M3.

I can't see even a partial adoption of a Valkyrie being practical. It simply wouldn't function as needed using today's technology as the benchmark for this discussion. The extensive hardware, necessary structure and weight needed to build a walking fighter craft would pretty much render the fighter itself impractical and obsolete compared to virtually any other conventional fighter aircraft (using the last 30-40 years of contemporary aircraft for comparison). That would leave us with a legged fighter acting as an attack helicopter...which doesn't sound any more efficient. There are easier, less expensive ways to achieve all the capabilities of a fighter and those of an attack helicopter than trying to build a jet fighter with robotic thruster legs. Macross can only exist in a practical manner using the magic of OverTechnology. Without that caveat, everything about a Valkyrie is called into question. Cost, maintenance, complexity, manufacturing, logistics, reliability, practicality, role...everything about such a machine would have to somehow justify itself. If all those factors couldn't be reasonably justified, then the Valkyrie wouldn't exist as a weapon of war. Even with the hand-waving magic of OverTechnology, one begins to question why other pieces of existing military hardware (or new types of machines altogether) haven't been developed using the same technological base used for the Valkyries. This is the robot show conceit of robot bias, pitting giant robots against conventional fighters, tanks, helicopters and ships to display robot superiority. If the fictional universe was written in an internally consistent manner, all that conventional hardware would enjoy the same technological advances as any giant robot. There would be OverTechnology tanks with energy converting armor, OT fighters with super powered engines and OT helicopters fitted with micro-missiles. Deploying a conventional A-10 Tank Killer against a giant robot is ridiculously anachronistic. The technology would need to be equal and what you would have is an A-11 Mech Killer with a mounted beam gun.

The Master List was actually missing four mecha, including the Monster Mk I from Macross Zero. I've corrected the issue and it will be fixed in the next update (which should be coming in about a month). Even though by chance I just happened to be aware of this error, thanks for posting about it. If you find any other errors, make sure to post them and I'll fix it. Thanks for visiting and I'm glad you enjoyed the site.

Looking good. Nice work.

Have barely any knowledge of Gaiking, but that's one mean looking giant robot. I like the effects and the trailer is all geek bait. Pretty damn cool.

Welcome to the forums, now in your post-lurker phase So far your VF-25G Messiah model looks great. Can't wait to see more.

That painting of Alto on his VF-25F Messiah is legendary. Do want

Well, it took 25 years to get this far, so total domination of the cinematic world might be a rather long wait

Glad you like it and thank you for the help. Just to note, I will sometimes make different shading choices than art within the official Macross publications. From my understanding of the line art, VF-11MAXL "hair" appear as flat pieces almost as thin as "blades". These "blades" are resting nearly perpendicular to the face, with a slight curve inward. If light is striking the VF-11MAXL Battroid at 45° from right and 45° from horizon (a standard lighting assumption) the interior of the right "blade" would be fully shadowed while the left "blade" would be shadowed by the head unit itself. And since these pieces are flat, there will be almost no light bloom on the edges.