Saruta

THIS. I think even a single movie would do if it was 3 hours of solid 7 action, not 90 minutes and much of it "framing".

Young miss Freyja is not even born yet in Macross-timing. Nor are Ranka, Sheryl, Basara... Mao Nome, as far as I could google out, was born May 8, 1997, so she's 19 now, a tad younger than Minmay. (Source https://myanimelist.net/character/13347/Mao_Nomewhich gives the date as May 8 and the age, presumably in 2008, as 11).

\Remind me please where this happens in Frontier. I'll go rewatch that part. Zentradi in Frontier are very well presented in general.

The dance one is really nice - and a Delta reference to boot, without actually straying from SDF-era lore. Editing: Is "childs" intentional?

McDonalds is gone in that world, likely because of the bombing of Earth. Nyan-Nyan is the new major fast food franchise. (I guess it made Kaifun rich).

Why "screw love triangles"? A yuri love triangle! With at least one of them a pilot.

Speaking of that: is the nature of the bombing/rays known? Some seem to assume nuclear. But while the Earth is obviously massively destroyed, evidence of lasting radioactive fallout does not seem to be there. This is especially visible in the DYRL version of events, where Hikaru and Misa spend quite some time in a totally desolate area of the Earth - without any sign of radiation sickness. Moreover, even if we go by SDFM, after the bombardment Misa got out right onto the surface - and, again, no radiation sickness.

The stuff discussed so far, in my view, probably means a few Britannica DVDs would have survived. Either on the Macross or on the Moon base, even if not on Earth. But, they might not be available in the first months at the least. Besides, the Britannica has relatively few in-depth information. So everything becomes valuable. I do think, though, that a good mechanical library was available from the start; the SDF-1 was an experimental vessel with a highly trained mechanical crew, and these guys don't just rely on what's in their head. (One of the mechanics was most likely a member of the Nakajima family). This is what likely enabled jump-starting of further VF development, which is mentioned in the text. (Whethet to include Mr./Ms. Nakajima in later development is up to the author, all we know is this person survived and had a descendant who became an idol singer AND got a girlfriend). Also, in a major war fought in the 2000s, they had to consider the possibility of at least a limited nuclear exchange. The world was full of this stuff even by 1982. As I understand, canon is that a nuclear exchange did not happen. (Which is, I think, somewhat hard to explain with 1982 politics, but easier if you use real-life 1999 as the branching point). Yet the UN government, the anti-UN governments and the major companies must have considered the possibility of a nuclear exchange.

Thanks Well, yeah, Isamu is definitely not one to mess with, but this time he's messing himself - with Mikumo. With the best of intentions as always in his practice! Also he provides the mandatory love triangle - I made sure to have every Macross pillar even in a very short story. And yes, thanks for the "Voldorian individuality" bit too! Mainly I tried to think of what an ANGRY CAT MAN looks and acts like. Not just any angry cat man, but the one we saw in ep.8, long after the fact but still very conscious of the pain caused to his children... Thus, the "catch and ram SV into the ground" manoeuvre, which I think does not exist in canon.

Where can I find VF sizes? I am specifically interested in the VF-171 (might be commissioning an art that has the Battroid and some humans).

I see what you did there, splitting up Noboru Ishiguro into Ishiguro the director and Noboru the victim! But - "during the first"? Were there really casualties of the transformation? I thought it was just buildings, but I might have misunderstood. (Or else Noboru may have been a pilot killed in that particular battle?) Also a nice hint of SDFM being that documentary (Editing note - "the time"/"that time" intwo subsequent sequences meaning different things, apparently). Other stuff: I was under the impression Mao would go off to study elsewhere but again may have misunderstood. I actually have a fic myself (in Russian, which I am planning to rewrite and expand into English, but held it for Delta, to integrate Delta lore - which fit perfectly). In that setting the protagonist radioed a warning to Earth resulting in some people getting into bunkers/subways on time, including Mao and the Saotome family. Otherwise, however, I don't cover this particular period much. (Also, another survivor we now know of is either Ranzo Nakajima or his child, as Makina is from that family; but this Nakajima person may well have been on the SDF-1, there was a lot of work there for a mechanic). Fun fact: I know that a significant part of Moscow's subway, at least, was in fact built explicitly with a feature to double as a nuclear bomb shelter. Whether the Zentraedi bombs (or rays, if we trust the animation) were enough to bust a few hundred meters of ground is an interesting question. Wonder if the same applies to Tokyo's subway.

I was more thinking of multinational Internet companies having their own data hosted in bunkers, built in the early to mid 2000s to protect from any possible attacks in the then-ongoing war. On the other hand, perhaps in that world multinational Internet companies were never a thing. Google was founded in 1998, so with the world war breaking out in 2000, it might never have grown and caused a boom of those. Multinational computer companies like IBM still have to exist, and have to have bunker data centers, but they might only have their own proprietary data in there. Wikipedia, same as Google, might not have grown in that world because of the world war. Therefore the likely best encyclopedia out there is the Britannica, which did exist in the form of optical media (the Britannica DVD, according to real-life Wikipedia, received Codie awards in 2000, 2001, and 2002, so it did exist before the 2000 breakout of war). However, if the canonical reading is that no bunkers withstood the bombing except the five Grand Cannons, one can suppose, perhaps, that nobody had a DVD Britannica there. Or that only a top commander had it sitting on his shelf and forgot about it, or something? (I have my own problems with that reading because of the survival of teenager Mao Nome and also the Saotome kabuki family, but that's neither here nor there for this work)

A one-shot I wrote right now... Criticism welcome. I know some details could be fleshed out at the end but I suspect it looks right as it is. Freyja really did think that she would never have to sing in war again. That the few years - if not months - she now had could be spent in careless flying and singing bliss with the love of her life and, perhaps, her Walkure friends. But Freyja was, after all, a 15 year old girl. Not your typical paragon of wisdom... *** Captain Johnston departed at night, when everyone was trying to sleep off the weariness of last day’s battle. Captain Johnston might have celebrated like everyone else, and he would not tell anyone his own battle was not over. Anyone, that is, except his three trusted ladies of the bridge. He did, after all, need Beth, Yuri, and Nina to fly the Aether with its new, not entirely willing passenger. The Captain was watching Mikumo very carefully for these last three years. Of course, so were Arad and Messer, but they were following orders. Johnston had a bigger stake in this game. Yes, he knew this exceedingly beautiful, composed, and wise woman was actually three years old. That was enough to hold him back from action, but can’t a man at least look? And look he did, which is why, among careless celebration by Arad and his pilots (not to mention Kaname and her singers), the Captain was the one to notice that the King of WIndermere lived. And therefore, if he were to utter these words again in the presence of the precious Star Singer… Johnston did not exactly know what the words were. However, Yuri, his trusty green-haired assistant, was an old movie aficionado (and a mercat aficionado, she could love two things at once just fine). So when the Captain was briefing the bridge bunnies, she dubbed the phrase “klaatu barada nikto”, at which point their plan became Operation Klaatu Escape. Mikumo was half-lured, half-bundled into the Aether, which swiftly spirited her away in a series of increasingly far folds. While the Star Singer was not happy to be away from her friends again, she sort of got the Captain’s point, though reluctantly. Also, Johnston reassured her that Arad had the endpoint coordinates, so he could help the Walkure reach her “once other obligations permitted”. The endpoint coordinates were none other than Old Earth. The Captain simply aimed for the most well known location, hoping to work out the details there. What he did not think of, however, was that Old Earth was buzzing with all sorts of military forces (and all sorts of political forces, too) after the loss of two NUNS fleets. Notably, the CEO of Nyan Nyan was not at all convinced that the NUNS could defend a single teapot, much less the first planet of humanity and even less a single office tower in Macross City. So he gave a Fold call to another CEO. The S.M.S. were engaged specifically to protect Nyan Nyan HQ. And, of course, they assigned their best expert on Earth penetration to the task. And thus the Aether was intercepted by none other than Isamu Dyson. Who, notably, was not at all aware that the spectacular woman inside was actually three years old. He was, however, well aware that she had a mesmerizingly soft, flowing voice - and that she looked sad. And if there was one thing Isamu Dyson was even better at than Earth penetration, it was making women happy. Which he proceeded to do, pointedly failing to notice the murmured curses of Captain Johnston. The one who did notice them was Yuri, who was actually quite capable of loving not two, but three things at once... But that is the matter for a different story. *** It is a common belief that cats are cute fluffy creatures. And, of course, the reputation of catgirls needs no reinforcement. It was not for nothing that Voldor became a mighty supplier of costumes (and sometimes brides). But woe unto you if you ever piss off a strong, mature cat. And if your legacy if a crying little catgirl, you might as well start digging your grave. The Voldorian Army was preparing for battle. And very few things could delay it. One thing did delay it - the announcement of a cease-fire between the New UN and the Kingdom of Windermere and the commencement of peace talks. It delayed it for an entire day, as every mechanic and every pilot, including (newly-minted) Colonel Larrazzabal, was painting Voldor’s cat sign over the NUNS insignia on the planet’s sizeable space flotilla. A day out of a week is significant delay, isn’t it? The Council of Elders notified the New U.N. that Voldor is “not currently bound by its treaties” as the expeditionary force was folding away. It did not exactly have a choice - unless an outright coup followed by a swift military trial for treason was to be considered a preferable alternative. Larrazzabal could hardly hold back his anger when he learned that these fat cats were not mind-controlled, like the army was, and collaborated “for the sake of the civilian population”. (Actually, few cat people except relatives ever cared much about the Voldorian Army, but that, too, is a different story). *** The battle itself was more like a massacre. Windermere no longer had its ace pilot. It did still have a few decent Knights and a ton of rookies in fighters, but how much good is that against a horde of really, really angry cats with proper NUNS training? King Heinz duly sang, but after all they have been through, Voldorians could now mostly shake that off. As a precautionary measure they did hire Chaos with the rump Walkure, but by far the most impact from that was Reina messing up the defenders’ communications. Also, when some stray pilots from other planets of the cluster belatedly tried to join the battle, Arad and Chuck had to pilot Kaname and Makina in their direction to prevent a possible Var outbreak. The Voldorians did not use any dimension or reaction weaponry. Angry or not, Larrazzabal was still mindful of the rules of war, and Windermere’s endless villages and apple orchards stayed untouched. But anything that tried to rise above the trees was wiped out, usually with a mass of rays, sometimes with missiles.That included some wing-suit flyers who thought they would do some recon (or something… thinking is not always a priority on Windermere, apparently). Theo and Xao were summarily blasted out of the skies at the far approaches to the castle. Eject they did, and one of the SV-262s was apparently recoverable. However, when they finally got through to HQ, they learned that the mechanical works were all outsourced to Epsilon and now stood abandoned. “Master” Hermann managed to take down a Voldorian rookie and damage another before Larrazzabal realized that this was a worthy opponent and pursued him swiftly. The VF-171 was not exactly as agile as the SV-262, but you DON’T. MESS. WITH. A. CAT, and besides, Hermann was not very young and not very calm. He crashed into the abyss next to the castle. Nobody knows if that was because of a few missiles to the wings or because he finally lost control over his body and his plane. Bogue was trying to persuade the King to evacuate. The King, of course, refused. When the outcome became inevitable (highlighted by the loud boom of what once was Master Hermann - with whom Bogue stayed in communication until the last moment), Bogue simply grabbed his treasured King, stuffed him into the SV-262 and soared above the castle in Gerwalk mode. Too late and too rash - a barrage of missiles and rays later, Larrazzabal was above him. The Colonel switched to Battroid, grabbed the enemy vessel and, accelerating, rammed it into the ground. Bogue only had the time to eject Heinz before getting stomped, along with his mecha, into a bloody pulp. Heinz was shaken, but alive. And he would not run. He stood and silently faced Larrazzabal with a defiant smile. Larrazzabal placed the Battroid into firing position and trained the main cannon on the King… *** At that very moment, a very familiar girl appeared before the cannon. Exactly the same girl that stepped before this very cannon some months ago. And to top it all, she was singing the same song.

what's GC? Also - good job naming "pad" generically. The iPad was out in 2010 in our reality, and the alternate history branching is 1999. I do wonder however whether a more proper data hub than the Saudi student thing would have survived. There was, in the Macross timeline a major war on Earth from 2000 to 2008, there would be bunkers built. Or are you hinting at the UNG getting its hands on the hub(s) first and preventing a re-emergence of a proper open Internet?

So we will NOT know who was flying those rescue VF-31s remotely?..

But that would be Mikumo, not the WIndermerians. Now, THAT meeting would be cool. Basara and Mikumo. Fire and Water? I don't see that working as a romantic couple but he'd be darn interested in what she is and what she did. And if that neural network moment was really Galaxy-wide, he already knows.

Yes, "breaking wind" jokes abounded...

Re "what happened next", I can't unsee the image of (flaking) Freyja singing Giraffe Blues in front of Larrazzabal's mecha gun again - only this time, she is not protecting Hayate but (flaking) Heinz. Because Larrazzabal would so get back at Windermere, and the Voldor army is immune to Heinz' singing, and Windermere has just lost its ace pilot - so the war is pretty much a one-sided affair, even without Xaos.

I would certainly appreciate an OVA series about the Jeniuses. With or without triangles, and with some music but it does not have to be as important. WiRe the music angle, they could play with the established Macross affinity for inworld covers by having some sisters cover Mylene's work for fun!

Well that's not surprising, given that M7 and Dynamite have more J-Rock than J-Pop? Seriously - the amount of new songs is a part I liked. Even though most of them are quite forgettable, at least they are not repetitive. They only really got repetitive with Giraffe Blues but it's not a bad song and they at least cared enough to make a few different arrangement.

My logical guess would be that while Xaos might forgive the Winderemerians (they helped them get Mikumo back, after all), and might influence opinion on Ragna especially as the WIndermerians did nothing hugely bad on Ragna... the people of Al-Shahal and especially Voldor won't be appeased so easily. The next step - invasion of Windermere by Voldorians, who are also immune to whatever Ketchup Boy can still sing? Larrazzabal as the commandant of the occupation regime? Not that they'll animate that, though. They have killed off Keith and Roid and Cassim so there are very few interesting characters on Windermere anyway.

THE SHERYL AND RANKA! Freeze frame bonus

But the Jenius family does anyway, does it not? (Just like their Sterling version did earlier in Robotech).

The scales appear to mean she does not have 15 years. Because she uses her rune so intensely, she might be gone in months, at best in a few years. When Hayate realizes this, will he ask her to stop singing? Novel/manga hook? One word. Otaku.

My general reaction: positive, all is forgiven, Shoji Kawamori-san. I bow to your writer/fan mightiness. But this is personal, about the very idea, and has little to do with some very obvious flaws in execution. You see, ever since about 1989-90, when I was in my early teenage years, I was furious about Asimov, my favourite sci fi writer back then (I still admire him a lot), doing the "artificial old all-wise robot lewads humanity into unity in a neural network and that's great" thing in Foundation and Earth. Zeroth Law, all that. It sounded like a betrayal of his own earlier ideals, which were not quite Heinlein but still pretty individualistic. And Kawamori has, I think, read the books. And looks like he felt what I felt. His first attack at the idea, as I now realize, was in Frontier; but in Frontier, only an "elite" wanted to be a neural network and rule the rest, so this was not a direct hit. He still did the excellent "Sheryl and Ranka demonstrate to the Vajra what individual differences mean" turn, though. But now, he intentionally fires a friggin' Macross Cannon at Gaia and all that jazz. Just what I wanted for 25 years, man, 25 years! So I'm thankful for that. Yet, the second cour could have been done way better. Yes, Mirage should have had some character development; also applies to Makina and Reina, and what Mikumo got was too little, too late. (I do like the way she is animated in ep26 though - for the first time we now see her as a child, her face far closer to her real physical age despite the body firm - her mysterious and serious persona now gone). Too bad we did not learn who Lady M is but this appears to be an intentional sequel hook. I'd love a Generations movie, and they have to do it pretty soon if they do it at all, before voices start retiring en masse. They probably can do without Tomo Sakurai, but if Yoshiki Fukuyama retires, the idea gone. And he is 53, quite advanced for a rock star. (Well they can use old recordings, but... it won't be the same I think). More like afraid it might kill Mikumo, I think. They are not exactly ready to sacrifice her.