frothymug

Regardless, it was good for a quick laugh. I'll have to watch Zero again in its entirety to see what else comes to mind. It was just something that hit me that I thought was strangely coincidental.

That is definitely one great example of the sybolism in the Mayan culture... heh.

I like hulagu's idea

Aries Turner does not specify how old the AFOS device is, but she says that it is at least 10,000 years old. Michael's ancestry is never specified in canon. However, everyone assumes that he's got some Zentraedi lineage, obviously because of his ears. If anything, his ears look more Zentran, and Klan's look more Zolan. We all know that she specifies her pure Zentraedi lineage, though. Looking at Jessica Blanc... she does kind of resemble a Zolan. Anyway, as far as Alpha Bombay blood type, only the Priestess of the Wind Clan carried it. If Mao needed a blood transfusion, how come they didn't use the blood from one of the other islanders?

I misunderstood the point of separating the AFOS. I thought Azrael meant that it was to hide it from nefarious beings OTHER than humans in the antiquity. Your explanation does make a lot of sense. I used this sentence as an example of a fable that was passed down from generation to generation. Although it's a story told by people who are oblivious to the workings of their own blood and DNA, it was told in a way for everyone to be able to understand and repeat to the next generation. It's not literally two snakes, but its a symbolic representation of the actual DNA strand. I'm pretty sure that the AFOS device was being controlled, or at least influenced, by Sara's song. Remember, that she was mourning the loss of Shin and when the device asked her those questions; she had nothing to live for. Imagine how she felt about humanity as a whole; after everything that she's seen civilized humanity do to her and her people... how their reckless pursuit of power and dominance took away the one person for whom she had begun to feel love. When Sara realized that Shin was not dead, but alive, she changed her song and emotion to where it halted the AFOS device's assault. Ironically, when it seemed that the device had been brought under control, the order to use brute force to destroy the device ended up tragically destroying the connection between Shin and Sara. Now we have no idea what happened to them after everything was over.

That was another point I was going to bring up. It is all a rich tapestry of symbolism. I also agree that it could mean that the Protoculture has a tendency to cross-breed with humanoids on each planet. If that was the case, perhaps the Protoculture itself is an amalgamation of all cultures of the universe. That would fall in line to the whole "alignment" of Humans and Zentrans in the current time period. Perhaps it was always meant to be that way.

I don't see the point in severing the AFOS device in half to "hide" it, since both pieces could be detected by the Cyclops cross-dimensional radar. Perhaps at that time, the technology wasn't available to detect on that spectrum. The point is that the fable is just that... a fable. A way of telling a story of how things came to be. I never meant to take the story LITERALLY, but you have to appreciate the symbolism in the story that could quite possibly be a little closer to the truth than one would like to believe. Sara was right about the coming of the bird-humans leading to a worldwide catastrophe. She even knew about the DNA in our blood when she said that there are two snakes intertwined with each other in blood, and she foreshadows that the power within them could be significant. How could she know about that if neither she, nor her ancestors had ever used a microscope to see what really is in one's blood? Fables usually use a more common-place nomenclature so the listeners can understand the story better. Instead of "emigration fleet", they used "turtle shell", for example.

I was watching Zero earlier today when some of the dialogue hit me in a strange perspective. When Nutuk is telling the fable of Rooy-Kanu and Rooy-Waka, he mentions that when the bird-humans came, they dropped a giant turtle shell into the water, which became the islands of Mayan. When I tried to visualize this in my mind, I remembered the image of Island-1 dropping into the sea on the Vajra homeworld at the end of Macross Frontier. Island-1 very much does resemble a giant turtle shell and arrived onto the planet's surface in a similar manner. I wonder if the protoculture "colonized" the Earth many years ago and through either a humongous coincidence, or there's some kind of natural occurrence of things, Humanity follows in the footsteps of the protoculture, using almost identical technologies. Bird-humans are now variable fighters, which are similar to the supposed natural form of the protoculture. When the bird-human cut its own head off, the blood that came out became Rooy-Waka. Rooy-Kanu and Rooy-Waka had many children together, but Rooy-Waka eventually left the planet to travel across the stars once more. It seems that this is the cycle of the Protoculture. That they would find a planet, colonize it, then grow their population. Once the population reached a certain point, they would "spawn" another colonization group, which would travel the stars in search of a new home. I could go on with some other interesting coincidences, but I want to hear some input before I go on.

Hope you can find a site that has a high-res version of the movie. If not, I highly recommend downloading one of the 720p versions. It's definitely full of eye-candy.

Don't forget his memorable performance in Explorers. I loved that movie... still do, actually!

I don't get what the complaints are about IE8. I never have problems with it and I never notice any speed differences using Firefox. I haven't touched Chrome, but seriously... why does everyone take a huge dump on IE? Is it too mainstream for your tastes?

So, there's a new generation of fighters available in the VF-25 and VF-27... this isn't like Kawamori to put in ANOTHER cutting-edge variable fighter so quickly in the timeline. And why the hell does Alto get to fly it? He's a newbie pilot at this point in the series. I was kinda irked at how "good" he appeared to be after being a combat pilot for maybe a few weeks. As a matter of fact, that final battle in the movie was his first live combat engagement. Those simulators must be pretty f'ing good... Michael DID crank up the difficulty on Alto for his training. Why does it feel like this is fan-created work and someone's just going with it? I remember the hubbub when pictures of SSJ5 Goku popped up along with rumors of a "Dragonball AF", and people were in a frenzy over it. I'm not saying that I don't believe what's in that magazine scan; I'm just remaining cautiously pessimistic.

Hey! I use AOL to handle my mail... although it's free internet mail. I've had the same address for... 16 years? I don't really want to change it, tbh.

I'm confused. Seto, did you miss Gubaba's posting of said picture, or did he go back and magically put it on his post without flagging an edit on that post?

IIRC, the gunpod is supposed to be stored within the fuselage on the ventral side. I haven't seen any illustrations that show how that works out; how it fires in fighter mode, and how it ejects when going to GERWALK or battroid.

I guess after reading Graham's response on some of the issues, there should be a disclaimer added to some of our complaints. When used in a "proper" manner, many of these things (such as social networks and smartphones) do serve a great purpose. However, the term "proper" is up in the air for a subjective definition... It's too bad that these innovative products have to be tainted by our commonly-perceived abuses.

I have been considering writing a fanfic about a blind person who aspires to be a pilot. He or she would have to use a BDI-enabled system to achieve their goal, in that scenario. The YF-21 brought forth several interesting technologies to the playing field, which earns my vote as the most innovative. edit: I said "BDS" instead of "BDI"...

Goddamn, you guys covered a lot of what I've spent hours bitching at random people about as I go on about my daily business. Social networking sites: How can people think that anyone cares that they had enchiladas for lunch? Honestly, I'd be more interested in what color it was on the way OUT. Yet, people still put this crap on their page AND THEN their friends "like" their post! Who f'ing cares?!? Smartphones: I have the same complaints as you guys do... I am so sick of people keeping their faces buried in their phones than paying attention to WTF is going on around them. My little brother, who is almost 21, is constantly on his phone texting his friends. It's so annoying when I invite him over to play some Smash Bros. or something and he's texting in between matches. F that S, put your phone away. THEN, I have to put up with asstard classmates who can't keep their phones in their pockets for at least 80 freaking minutes. They do whatever it takes to hide their phones from the professors' views and then when they get caught, they get upset that the teacher is trying to maintain a semblance of order and respect in the classroom. If you can't use it responsibly, GTFO and STFU. Seto, I totally agree with you on the ADD thing. iPods: Same complaints here... why the hell do you need 6000 hours of continuous non-repeated playback on your iPod? You just wanted the 16 gig version so you could show off to your friends how much pirated music you have available to you. There's nothing wrong with having ecclectic tastes in music, but I really don't give a rat's ass how much music you have. Your batteries won't last long enough to get through all the songs you have saved on your iPod. Is it really that hard to just dock it when you need to change up some songs? NASA: Ghost Train, I share the same sentiments on the Moon thing. As a matter of fact, I was complaining about this to my little brother earlier today. NASA has become a bloated and bureaucratic money sink that doesn't get anything done nowadays. All we do is put sattelites into orbit and screw around with the ISS. It irks me to no end when I hear about a shuttle mission getting scrubbed because there's a goddamn CLOUD in the sky! Just push the button and launch the damn thing. They get paid regardless of how quickly they get their missions completed. If they'd constructed the shuttle better, they wouldn't have to treat it like it's a fragile flower. ...and finally, Cars: areaseven's comment was also right on. ...but I'd like to add my two cents... ->Push to "start" buttons on cars.<- Every time I see this, I think of the Simpsons episode when Sideshow Bob steals a nuclear weapon and holds the city for ransom, demanding that TV be abolished. When he jumps into a waiting Harrier jet, he looks at the console that has two buttons: "start" and "stop". To which, he remarks, "God bless the idiot-proof Air Force". We already have too many morons piloting these two-ton bullets down the road. Making driving easier is just going to make things worse for those of us who actually spend a lot of time negotiating with asshat drivers for a living.

Even the Jamming Birds get in on the Macross II covers.

My guess is that this story is going to have a little touch of Hikaru in it, since Hikaru was an acrobatic pilot before he joined the service. I had considered writing a side story where old valkyrie models were being used to fight hand-to-hand as a spectator sport, but then I realized that it might turn out to be too much like G-Gundam, lol.

The NUNS of Frontier was pretty quick to get their asses into gear and throw some major upgrades into the VF-171, once they developed anti-Vajra munitions. Gotta give them credit for upping their game so quickly to meet the challenge head-on. Let's not forget our dear friends of Diamond Force in eps 14 and 24 whoopin' up on some nasty bugs flying both the VF-171 and VF-171EX.

Oh, I must have missed the part about it being about VF races on the Frontier fleet. So much to take in all at once!

Sounds a lot like Che Guevara...

lol, yeah, I was wondering what those air show pictures have to do with the novel. Anyone who can read the text on there shed some light on the issue?

The thrust vectoring on the VF-1 is for pitch only (not yaw), since it's not three-dimensional vectoring. It does help tremendously, and it's even a common technique to switch to GERWALK for even better thrust vectoring (except it only works in one direction in the GERWALK case). What VFs have three dimensional vectoring? VF-22 and VF-27? Am I missing any? SV-51, perhaps?