Nerdfish

No discrimination against machines, you specists !

VFTF, I have pointed out the grace's attempt to control the universe is highly unrealistic. There is really no reason why any intelligent creature or construct would put themselves directly in charge of a vast number of much less intelligent beings. Even if she had succeeded with that goal in mind, she'd have to think for everybody - which is just more work. How could she achieve revenge, or anything for that matter, by saddling herself with the the task of thinking for everyone.

Aimo, Aimo, ARRRG.

I cannot sleep as long as the Macross OST is playing. And it's becoming a serious problem. It always seemed to be playing "Northern cross" or "Aimo O.C" right as I try to sleep, promoting me to play that track again. And two hours later I'd still be listening the same track. It's evil. LOL. I am not 30 feet tall nor do I look like a giant wasp (the last time I looked), Help!

Nanase and Grace both have glasses and purple hair/eyes...

The conspiracy deepens !

The best part about grace is how she went from this:

to this:

It's like you'll be telling me that Nanase will try to conquer the universe later on. How could I possibly believe you?

Those images shows that Electronic PMS is deadly. Avoid it at all cost.

We should really watch out for Nanase. the More innocent they look, the more evil they are.

The writers did not do her justice huh.

Thinking of it, isn't the whole point of becoming a disembodied construct avoiding those human flaws the writers piled on her.

This is just bad writing, then She certainly isn't given a realistic portrait.

But considering how much fun the show was, I can forgive that.

My fault to take a Mecha show seriously, isn't it.

Actually, Grace was human and all the baggage that entails. As for the rest, I think it's safe to say (debate about writing quality aside) Grace wasn't the protagonist nor was the purpose of Frontier to create an academic rumination upon human evolution vs. trans-human evolution

It's safe to say Grace wasn't human during the amine. She stopped being human the first time she died. She's similar to number six from BSG after that. I am pretty sure she wasn't the protagonist, but she's a better character then most protagonists. (By "better" I don't mean morally, moral don't apply to bots.)

Sacrificing thousands (if not millions) of unique sentient living beings (and almost a whole planet) in the process? Not rational at all... Grace's too wicked for being cool... Too obsesive for human... Too mad for a flawless A.I....

AFAIK Grace's only motivation behind her every move/plan/whatever was her mad obsession of becoming superior to the Protoculture and achieving what they couldn't. Vajra, humans and Zentradi were just obstacles for her, so she decided to kill/control them all. That's pretty crazy if you ask me...

Mad obsession huh ? Please note the way AIs operate - if they have been programmed with a goal they may continue to peruse it at cost of everything else, even at cost of their own existence, depending on how the AI is coded.

Grace might have calculated that the new stage in evolution is worth any cost, or at least a planet worth of whatever. The key here is not what she is willing to sacrifice, but what her goal is. Her goal could to benefit herself or to advance the human species to the next stage of consciousness. If it's the former then it's just bad writing - why would she want the job of controlling billions of what amounts to idiots to her? if she want another job she could just work as the local vending machine instead. If her goal is the later, she's fundamentally benevolent, however applicable that word is to a artificial being.

As for killing everyone - that's just bad writing. As we have probably concluded by now, if she tried thing the sensible way, it'd not be any fun.

Ah well all I can is... Enjoy your tentacles.

Tentacles? I am sure grace have plenty of tentacle-less clones. I do hope grace get her next job as a sentient capital ship. Every Sci-fi world need one of those.

All we have is human nature, which hasn't diminished within Grace in the slightest since her trans-human migration. In fact, one could argue she's the worst of human nature. And as benevolent a way as we could ever try to portray Grace, her motives were never born out of altruism, but hatred and vengeance. She saw a means to an end, not the uplift of human existence. And if the motive was ever benevolent, there would also be a benevolent way to persuade others of the value of the cybernetic utopia, not impose it unilaterally. Like I said, Grace is just another dictatorship, but simply played on a different field.

Unfortunately grace isn't human at all. You are assuming that an artificial intelligence have human motivation and nature. While that is possible, it certainly does not have to be true. An AI does not even need the capacity for hatred and vengeance. Her objective might have been the uplifting of human existence but bad writing and bigotry against AIs cause her to be play the role she did. Even then, she is wicked cool.

Yak, that image is pretty literally Deculture.

Grace, please kill that eyesore.

Oh a second thought, download him into a garbage bot.

Just had some fun with the idea of a peer to peer galaxy network.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) you have joined channel 004. Today's news message is - Aimo.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) 250,000 out of 1,000,000,000 users online, 400 in this channel

Grace: /votekick Brera Sterne.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) Brera Sterne removal vote started, 1 out 500,000 votes required.

Brera Sterne: What the hell.

Grace: LOL.

Brera Sterne: Seriously what the hell.

Grace: Your Ranka streams are eating our bandwith.

Brera Sterne: BS. you said we have infinite bandwith.

Grace: for useful stuff.

Conspirator #25: Ranka streams are useful stuff.

Grace: /votekick 25

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) #25 removal vote started, 1 out of 500,000 vote required.

Vajra-Queen: take it easy with these votes already, I am listening Ranka streams too.

Ranka Lee: /agree

Grace: wtf is wrong with you guys. why is Ranka downloading from herself ?!?!?

X-9 Ghost #4: (bot message) cursing is not recommended on the galaxy network.

Frontier - Lucai: Hey Grace your votes are eating the bandwith.

Shimon: (bot message) /agree

Johanne: (bot message) /agree

Petero: (bot message) /agree

Grace: ARG.

Grace: Coffee BRB.

Grace: /quit.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) Grace O'Connor has disconnected (disconnected by user).

Vajra-Queen: That was easy.

Ranka Lee: /agree.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) LMAO.

Frontier-Alto has logged in.

Frontier-Alto: Sup.

Macross Galaxy: (bot message) Nothing.

Vajra-Queen: Nothing, wanna listen to Ranka streams ?

Frontier-Alto: No thanks.

Wow. hopes, dreams, despair and nightmares all in one package. me likee.

What Grace need is a Sheryl clone. A quick download would give dream his/her idea of perfection

Whether Grace and her cohorts in the Macross Galaxy fleet were altruistic might not even be an issue. What form of rule would hold sway in their new cybernetic utopia?

In any social system, you need ways to deal with fundamentally differing points of view. Sure Grace and her cohorts are all of the same opinion, but what happens when someone else isn't (or even some change their minds). There would have to be some kind of government, even if the laws of governance in this cybernetic utopia don't resemble anything we now perceive as government. And who is likely to be calling the shots in this cybernetic utopia if not Grace herself? So I doubt her motives and those of the Macross Galaxy co-conspirators were really altruistic at all. Even if everything came to pass as Grace desired and all Humans/Zentradi were either wiped out or migrated to a post-human existence, Grace would likely be the one in charge of it all. Sounds like just another dictatorships to me, perhaps even worse given the pervasiveness of a disembodied consciousness that can be everywhere and in every machine.

A network does not have to have a master. Have you heard of peer to peer networks? RTS games usually use these and if the host leaves everyone can continue to play. Nobody need to call the shot. If such a network need to make a political decision, then it's usually done by a quick vote (player kicking in peer-to-peer gaming is a pretty good example). I truly do not understand why galaxy had not decide to do things that way. The writers probably decided they'd be (a lot less) villainous that way and the show need bad guys. Remember we heard grace's plan during the last episode from the protagonist's perspective, there might be a misunderstanding. That or that Macross developers are really afraid of AIs.

BTW. there has never been an artificial protagonist character in the entire series (and plenty of villains). What's up with that. People are, for all intend and purposes, a lot more scarier then AIs

Madness ? she may be completely sane for a Cyborg. From their perspective we are the insane, irrational ones. And before you call her a "crazy" scientist, try to understand her a bit more. She is doing something that make perfect sense. Although she's slightly obsessive/compulsive when it comes to being in control, she's probably one of the most rational character in the series.

She is more of a program then a machine. Grace came back from death at least twice. It's possible to appreciate the excellent precision and elegance that makes a beautiful program. Now tell me why human beauty isn't mask or facade, and I will give you a digital cookie. And that starwars quote is so very, very old.

There was no idle threats involved: Grace said Sheryl's death was planned and then interrupted during her conference with the rest of the Galaxy conspirators, not to Sheryl or anyone on Frontier. Likewise, it was to them that she said Project Fairy was over and she had no further use for Sheryl. All she said to Sheryl was that she had no use for her and was just going to let her die from the disease she conveniently had not cured before it was too late. She was clearly aware that there was some danger to her plans from Bilrer and SMS, and even that Alto was one of those people who have a knack to be at the center of things, but those were also mostly ignored because the plan was so perfect.

But she couldn't have explicitly killed Sheryl in a horrible death scene (a.k.a Micheal death) without attracting attention.

On another front though, it's hard to imagine a Macross series where a less villainous version of Grace's plan would be cast in a good light, for much the same reason as it's hard to imagine one where the Ghost program as replacement for VFs would have been a good and successful move - like many sci-fi series, it's much about a sort of culture and lifestyle the present viewer can understand and identify with, only with spaceships, giant robots, and ten meter tall people with pointy ears. Serious shakeups to human society, and the principles by which human society operates, are handled lightly by casual-viewing stuff like Macross.

That brings up another point, why do the Heroes always end up beating the villain shitless instead of at least try to convince them. Grace seemed to be a reasonable character (as are all cyborgs) If a good point is bought up she's likely to at least consider it. Heck, even if a computer virus would have neutralized her ahead of time without any horrible deaths involved. Maybe it's just morally acceptable for current audience to beat up a villain, and it's pretty and satisfying that way.

It's never specified why she want to control everyone. Didn't she ever read Dune ? It's highly unrealistic to portrait a scientist as a bigot - They have to be constantly aware of possible flaws in theories and keep a open mind. A good scientist would never be certain of their correctness. Unless she have accumulate a mountain of data to prove that it's better for HER to control everyone, she'd have to always in doubt of that.

"Give as few orders as possible," his father had told him... once... long ago. "Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."

Oh, the perils of leadership in a species so anxious to be told what to do! How little they knew of what they created by their demands. Leaders made mistakes- And those mistakes, amplified by the numbers who followed without questioning, moved inevitably toward great disasters.

The more control, the more that requires control. This is the road to chaos.

I like Grace and all, but isn't the "I was going to kill you, but instead I will break your spirit and leave you to die while I go about my plot because I know you will never threaten me" treatment of Sheryl a classic villain cliche?

That can be interpreted as an idle threat. Grace really couldn't have pwnt Sheryl then without attracting too much attention. Sheryl is involved with pilots from SMS. Killing Sheryl would very possibly leads to exposure of her plan. Grace knows Sheryl was about to break, and would never admit she has been threatened. Therefore an empty threat then would be the best course of action.

Stories need bad guys, a pity really. She'd make a great anti-villain without the control freak. Her goals are admirable sans the Root Node catch.

Thanks everyone. You guys seemed to be a whole a lot friendlier then other forums!

If grace herself wasn't awesome enough, grace and all her clones together would surely have enough awesomeness to overwhelm both Ranka and Sheryl.

I just watched Macross F again, and I must say I am in awe of Grace. She is a little mean, but she is the one character who has ambition, courage and capacity to improve the universe. Her masterful plan is of course disrupted by the heroes in the end because she happens to be The Villain.

IMHO Grace is a waste as a Big Bad. She has the complexity to ignore obsolete moral principles and is too intelligent to fall for provincial Villain clichés. Realistically the implant network idea would have worked if she just tried to legalize and sell those things. A lot of people would find it advantageous to join a galaxy spanning network. While not connecting to everyone, enough humans and Vajra would be in the network to bring about dawn of a new age. Allowing anyone to join and leave the network freely would also constantly bring new ideas into the network, and keep the queen from becoming bored.

While it’s perfectly feasible for Grace to think of above, it’s much less dramatic that way. Therefore Grace has to be killed over and over for our entertainment. But either way I say she gave it a good try given the circumstances.

Since Grace died half a dozen times during the show, I hope this is not the last we see of her. She'd make a pretty damn good hero without the control freak in her