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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Just FYI, that's not actually a new detail. Great Mechanics DX had previously mentioned that the idea of upgrading the VF-19 with EX-Gear and an Inertia Store Converter was entertained as an alternative proposal to the YF-24 program. It's noted that the idea was discarded for various economic and practical reasons. It's also noted therein that the VF-19 never achieved a widespread adoption to replace the VF-11 and was relegated to the de facto status of a special forces Valkyrie. I'm aware... you're referring to Oscar Brauhitch's VF-19A Custom for Team Shinsei. It's worth noting that what you're referring to is explicitly presented as a theory about the origins of Oscar Brauhitch's aircraft, not a fact. If the Macross 7 fleet was holding up the VF-19 as a possible alternative to the YF-24, that screams "set up to fail" given that the VF-19A in question lacks any of the proposed upgrades to address the fact that it was still an unflyable monster to the average pilot. So much so that it's repeatedly referred to as a craft that choses its pilot. That theory doesn't say anything about the Macross 7 fleet's New UN Forces adopting the VF-19, just that it was considered as an alternative. Apparently one that was not selected, given that later material indicates the Macross 7 fleet got the VF-25 in the end. That doesn't do anything to shift aside the Macross Frontier movie novelization also indicating the Macross 7 fleet adopted the VF-25. The only official answer to the question thus far is "VF-25". Mind you, you ignored one critical problem. The fix for the VF-19's performance exceeding human tolerances is adoption of EX-Gear and an Inertia Store Converter. Without those improvements, the VF-19's own performance effectively restricts its use to a small number of elite pilots able to handle its excessive specs. The essential material needed to build an Inertia Store Converter to make it accessible to average pilots is... wait for it... fold quartz. Even then, its performance is only about half that of a 5th Generation Valkyrie's. Plus it lacks maintenance-friendly improvements like linear actuators, and needs structural reinforcement to use anti-Vajra weapons (as noted in Macross R). The remarks about the export restrictions to emigrant governments aren't specific to one variant in all but one case. The one exception being Macross R, where it is specifically mentioned the Caliburn is a monkey model due to the New UN Gov't's reluctance to export the E spec. It is, however, repeatedly indicated that the number of VF-19s produced was small and that it never became a main variable fighter due to the New UN Government's reluctance to and/or restrictions on exports to emigrant governments, the high initial and operating costs, and its own performance making it a craft that most pilots could not handle.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    ... all none of them? Remember, Frontier-era and later materials indicate the VF-19 was never adopted as a main fighter due to export restrictions placed on them in the wake of the Sharon Apple incident, the high initial and operating costs, and the control difficulties that led to loss-of-control accidents and crashes during the initial attempts to adopt the VF-19 by the central New UN Forces. It would not have been possible to have the VF-19 become a main fighter for an entire emigrant fleet. Both the Macross Frontier movie novelization and Variable Fighter Master File indicate the Macross 7 fleet opted to adopt the Macross Frontier fleet's VF-25 as the fleet's next main fighter. Max and Milia sortie in VF-25s in the climax of the movie novelization, and in Master File Emerald Force was tasked to carry out operational evaluation on the two VF-25S's and four VF-25C's that the Macross 7 fleet produced for operational evaluation of the VF-25. And you'd be right. The Macross 7 fleet only had a handful of VF-19s, and would have gone from the VF-11 to VF-171 for their main forces. Even in 2058, the VF-19 was only ever a special forces bird made in extremely low numbers. (The Frontier fleet's lavish defense spending saw them hold a whopping 150 of them between units on loan to SMS and ones in the Frontier special forces. Galaxy had a single squadron of them in their Corporate Army.) Eh... it's a very safe bet they did adopt the VF-171. While Diamond Force and Emerald Force get all the screentime, it's a very safe bet there were more than just six special forces pilots in an emigrant fleet defense force of nearly 200 warships and some 2,700 aircraft. Only 718 VF-17s were built in total, that's much less than the number you would need to replace every VF-11 in the Macross 7 escort force and considering they were spread out to special forces units across the galaxy? Let's just say it's pretty obvious they didn't adopt the VF-17 as their next main fighter. (For the record, Master File identifies Emerald Force as the 5th Special Escort Combat Squadron, which would imply the existence of at least three more besides them and Diamond Force.) Also, some of the "improvements" to make the VF-17 on par with the VF-171 would've been downgrades. Available information suggests that it was. Frontier-era material explicitly puts Max and Milia in VF-25s, and Master File puts Emerald Force as conducting OPEVAL on the fleet's first few VF-25s. Yeah. Especially once you exceed the design tolerances of the airframe and aerodynamic design. Technically, the Defender IS a General Galaxy unit... General Galaxy was formed by a merger of the overtechnology research institute and manufacturing multinational OTEC and a number of other companies like Centinental, Viggers, etc. that made things like Destroids. The Macross Galaxy Corporate Army in Macross R uses the VF-171 Nightmare Plus as standard and one of their special forces units (Pegasus Squadron) uses a Galaxy-produced "improved" model VF-19C to flex on Shinsei Industry, but in the Macross Frontier novelization their forces also include squadrons made up of refurbished older General Galaxy VFs including VF-9s and a new variant of VF-17 designated VF-17F. The VB-6 had structural issues stemming from its sheer size and mass, which made it problematic to operate and maintain and made it slow-moving and cumbersome enough to require a VF escort in the field. The 2050s improved specification deployed by SMS addressed and mitigated some of those issues, but made the craft a good deal more costly in the bargain by adopting the same bank-breakingly expensive ASWAG advanced energy conversion armor used in the VF-25's Armored Pack to replace the previous armor and make it lighter. That'd likely have to be an emigrant fleet composed entirely of Zentradi like Macross 5 was... but the logistics inherent in keeping giant Zentradi around make it problematic at best, and Frontier was considered somewhat weird for the grandiose display of having a giant Zentradi community aboard (for tourism purposes). Cost and operating difficulties basically left the VF-19 in general in the hands of Special Forces pilots. Even the incredibly spend-happy Macross Frontier fleet went for the much more subdued VF-171 and built ~154 VF-19s to share between its special forces and local SMS branch. FWIW, the VF-171 did make a pretty decent playable unit in Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy. It was accurately put below the VF-19 and VF-22 in terms of performance, but it was still head and shoulders above any of the 3rd Generation and older VFs in the game. (It essentially stood in for the VF-17 as well, with many of its paintjobs being those from the VF-17.) The 117th Research Fleet was headed into Vajra space, so it would've been a priority for the newest, shiniest, killiest main VFs available. Especially as a research fleet with some heavy hitter corporate sponsorship behind it. The novelization of Macross Frontier indicates it was sponsored by defense industry giant Critical Path.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Ah, soon I'll be able to get back to work on the Historica project. They've finally moved to correct my staffing levels, and I'll have a shiny new office in a few weeks. I'll be able to get back to proper translation work and won't be working 60-70 hour weeks anymore, so I can focus on web design.
  4. Seto Kaiba
    If that example's anything to go by, it just makes them a bigger target. Quamzin didn't exactly have a ton of luck with the Migg Pitt in Macross II's timeline, getting rekt by a single platoon of Valkyries and all. Considering the example's track record, it'd just take a bit more gunfire to put down and be less effective against fighting the smaller mecha. Earth and the central New UN Forces decided in 2057 to adopt the VF-24. The emigrant governments are spoiled for choice. Some of the New UN Government member states are noted to have transitioned to all-Ghost air forces in the previous generation, and will presumably eventually upgrade to a new generation of Ghost when one becomes available. Others will doubtless fill in the gaps in the disseminated YF-24 Evolution spec with the technology available to them and build their own local/"export" specification versions of the VF-24. A few, like Macross Frontier, Macross Galaxy, and the Brisingr Alliance, will develop their own original models of Variable Fighter based on the YF-24 Evolution spec. Some will sell that as an export specification to their neighbors. And of course there will be those who buy the export versions of the locally-developed VFs exported by governments like Frontier, Galaxy, et. al. over adopting the VF-24's export specification. There will also doubtless be those who drag their heels on the matter due to a lack of resources or a lack of a perceived need to transition to a 5th Generation fighter and will just keep rolling with whatever they have.
  5. Seto Kaiba
    General Galaxy's VF-171 Nightmare Plus was designed to address the main complaints the New UN Forces had about the Shinsei Industry VF-19: Cost Handling Performance respecting human limits So what General Galaxy delivered was a multirole VF with exceptionally good cost-performance, high operational versatility, and performance appropriate to a next-gen Valkyrie without going overboard or making it inaccessible to average pilots. As with most block upgrades, the changes are "under the hood" and don't affect its appearance. The Block IIIF is a slightly less extreme upgrade than the EX-type, but most of the changes are the same as the EX-type's. It adopted the same FF-2550F engine tuned to 67,500kgf and the same AA/AS/SF-06 integrated sensor matrix from the VF-25 that the EX-type did. They both received the same MDE armaments upgrade package too. The Block IIIF didn't receive the EX-Gear cockpit retrofit that the EX-type did for cost reasons, and also omitted the adoption of the better energy conversion armor system and VF-25's improved ablative anti-beam coating the EX-type got. All in all, it's the same as the VF-171EX except for the bits that make the EX-type obviously a hero mecha. Offhand, I don't recall seeing any art of the vanilla RVF-171... just the EX-type. I'd expect the RVF-171 to have the same head as the regular VF-171. It appears only in the TV series, and only in a flashback. Michael Blanc's sister Jessica had one at the time of the friendly fire accident that drove her to suicide. Master File calls it the VF-171AS. That's Gundam, which is driven by gunpla sales... so they always need a flavor of the week. In Macross, military procurement is handled a bit more realistically. Though the real world doesn't often see military grade aircraft end up in civilian hands or used as training craft for vocational schools. (In Macross Frontier's short stories and light novels, Mihoshi Academy's pilot training program is confirmed to be partly a feeder program for the Frontier NUNS flight school and its students train on aftermarket/civilian VF-1s... the VF-1C variant specifically.) Valkyries, like real world aircraft, can only be upgraded so far before you're basically rebuilding the entire plane from scratch into something that only outwardly resembles what it originally was. (F/A-18E/F Super Hornet for instance.) Upgrading a VF beyond what it was designed to handle structurally or aerodynamically can make it dangerously unstable as well. This is seen at several points in Macross R like Hakuna Aoba's VF-1X++, which was already pushing the limits of the VF-1 airframe before he gave it 64,200kgf engines from a drone and bolted more rocket boosters to it, turning it into an unstable mess that is one mistake away from being a fireball. Or the VF-9E, which couldn't handle its new engines in testing and developed a disquieting habit of exploding. Or the VF-31 Siegfried custom, which couldn't handle the stresses of overboosting with its fold wave system and needed a lot of hangar time between sorties. The Macross Galaxy fleet tried to make a show of keeping older model General Galaxy VFs in fighting shape, with mixed results. I'd imagine it'd probably be cheaper to phase the VF-11s out for something designed with that equipment from the outset. The Regults do use the thrusters in their feet for maneuvering, though I think that's just an angle-of-the-shot thing in DYRL. The five word motto of almost everything designed for the Zentradi: "Operator comfort was not considered."
  6. Seto Kaiba
    I really want to sit down with the studio doing Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It! and the original author and ask them something. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to throw a protracted storyline about an attempted gang rape into a happy-go-lucky romcom about socially awkward academics? But for the last two minutes or so, the entire final episode is Kanade being abducted by the guy she was seeing after turning him down and him and his generic hooligan buddies going back and forth between sexual assault and threats about same until Yukimura finds them and tries to talk them to death. WHAT. THE. HELL. I can't recall the last time a series made me this angry.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    I'd hope there's a mechanism in the suit for urine collection the way NASA puts into suits intended for EVA. Macross, at the very least, hasn't gone to the very strange place Gundam: Reconguista in G did where the pilot seat of the main character's mecha includes a fully functional flush toilet. That Tomino felt compelled to include that in G-Reco was weird enough. That we had to see it IN USE (while multiple people were in the cockpit no less) was possibly the weirdest thing I saw all year that year.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    That assumes DYRL-esque realistic space maneuvering rather than the more dramatic constant-thrust-equals-constant-velocity you usually see. So 10 minutes of time running the engines at maximum power isn't necessarily a huge problem since there is no drag from atmosphere to slow you down once you reach a specific speed.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    They're not gonna be doing kung fu, but they're designed to allow a more or less unrestricted normal range of motion so they could probably get away with some fisticuffs. I wouldn't wanna be hit by an EX-Gear suit though, in the TV series ep8 Sheryl does a wall slam that cracks what appears to be a concrete wall while she's using a borrowed civilian suit. Offensively, they're made to wield those very large rifles.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    The exact burn time at maximum thrust varies a bit between sources, but all sources are generally in agreement that the VF-1's internal fuel supply was only enough for 10 minutes or less of burning at maximum thrust. As to the reason, it's a consequence of having constrained the size of the VF-1 Battroid to approximately the expected size of the Zentradi because they were expecting to have to fight infantry in an invasion of the planet's surface. Once they learned that the Zentradi didn't do that kind of thing, the focus shifted towards space-based defense and improved space capabilities. Fighter mode is the same and GERWALK mode looks mostly the same, but Battroid mode looks very much like a VF-1's and the version in Eternal Love Song has a VF-1S-like head, a beam rifle, and funnels ala Gundam. Yes, the Vajra are quite large. Standing up in a bipedal form, the Vajra heavy soldier type - the generic "big red" - is 25m tall to the top of its carapace and 30m to the top of its heavy quantum beam gun. Most Battroids hover around 14-15m.
  11. Seto Kaiba
    It's pretty on-brand for a 4th Generation Valkyrie like the VF-171. The 4th Generation brought in, among other things, a new generation of thermonuclear reaction turbine engine that offered vast improvements in efficiency and output. Having more efficient engines that could get more thrust and energy from less fuel was a game changer for Option Packs. Prior to that point, Option Packs like the Super Pack had existed mainly to improve a Valkyrie's endurance in space operations by adding large tanks of fuel slush for the main engines and rocket boosters to reduce the demand on the main engines for the Valkyrie's acceleration. With the more fuel-efficient thermonuclear reaction burst turbine engines that were introduced on 4th Generation Valkyries like the YF-19 and YF-21 and put on late 3rd Generation designs like the VF-16 and VF-17, it was no longer strictly necessary to lug around big conformal fuel tanks and rocket boosters to obtain a decent amount of burn time from the reaction engines in space. This change in basic needs reduced Option Packs to a borderline vestigial state on 4th Generation Valkyries, either being abolished by absorbing their functions directly into the aircraft (as on the YF-21/VF-22) or reduced to little more than a bolt-on missile launcher here or there as on the YF-19/VF-19A. The much improved generator output of the new generation of engine technology also meant more power to go around for defensive measures like active stealth, energy conversion armor, and the addition of a VF-scale pinpoint barrier system. Improvements in materials and the availability of more energy for the system meant energy conversion armor greatly improved its defensive ability. It was no longer necessary to bolt big chunks of ECA-backed composite armor to a Valkyrie to achieve excellent defensive potential. The late 3rd and 4th Generation Valkyries with the new engine type could achieve defensive strength rivaling a VF-1 w/ Armored Pack (over 2.5x the defensive strength of the VF-1 alone) without the need for any additional armor at all. The addition of the pinpoint barrier system only improved the defensive situation further, so Armored Packs also went out of style for a while in the 4th Generation's heyday. The VF-171's Armored Pack is a minimialist enhancement that fits with the design ethos of the 4th Generation and the VF-171. It's low-profile, minimizing the additional burden on the active stealth system by minimizing its impact on the aircraft's passively stealthy shape. It up-armors key areas where damage could disable the craft without destroying it: its engines and cockpit. It doesn't add a ton of additional weaponry because the EX type (and Block IIIF) were already upgunned to the max with MDE weapons. It bolsters defense but doesn't impact the VF-171's performance noticeably, which is advantageous because the VF-171 could barely keep up with the Vajra as it was. 5th Generation Valkyries reversed the whole philosophy underpinning Option Packs. Instead of slapping a few missile launchers on big boosters and fuel tanks needed to give a VF enough fuel to operate for long periods in space, they reversed the equation and designed Option Packs around the idea of maximizing offensive capability and using those booster rockets and additional verniers to offset the weight of all that extra weaponry. The Super and Armored Packs for the VF-25, VF-31, etc. actually significantly degrade the Valkyrie's acceleration and maneuverability in exchange for carrying hundreds of missiles and other weapons. The VF-25's Super Pack halves its maximum acceleration. The Armored Pack cuts it to about 1/3 of normal. Probably not, given that the transformation changed considerably. As with so many matters, it depends on the government's priorities. It's noted that early emigrant fleets and recently settled planets used a mixture of different Valkyries. Initially it was a mix of VF-1's and VF-4's, and throughout the heyday of the 2nd Generation Valkyries the VF-4 shared its status with a bunch of others like the VF-5, VF-5000, and VF-9. Those early designs, esp. the VF-1 and VF-4, were intended to be multirole, so they covered both Fighter and Attacker roles reasonably well. Role-dedicated VFs started to branch out in the 2nd Generation and established themselves in the 3rd, with models like the VA-3, VA-14, VAB-2, VB-6, etc. By the time of the 3rd-4th Generation VFs and 3rd Generation of emigrant fleets, you could basically count on a fleet having maybe 3-4 different types of Valkyrie at their disposal in practice. The main fighter (VF-11 or VF-14), a dedicated attacker (e.g. VA-3, VA-14), and a special forces Valkyrie (e.g. the VF-17, VF-19, VF-22). The 4th Generation seems to have changed things a bit, with the VF-171 having a multitude of role-specific variations that allowed a common platform to Jack-of-all-Trades into the majority of roles. We've seen the RVF-171 and the VF-171 designated marksman variant, but there is also mention of a fighter-bomber type in the VB-171 and others. Insofar as replacement vs. addition, there is replacement and retirement of older designs going on... but as is my now-constant refrain, that depends on the government's priorities. As newer models are phased in and squadrons retrain on the new aircraft, older models are gradually reassigned to "second string" duties like serving as training aircraft. Once they either hit the point where they're too obsolete to be any good or the cost of maintaining them exceeds the benefits of keeping them, they're retired and either scrapped for materials, stripped of classified hardware and sold off to civilians, or converted into unmanned target aircraft for live fire training. For example, Chelsea Scarlett in Macross R bought three of the Macross Frontier fleet's retired VF-11B airframes to make her VF-11B Nothung II at the end of the story. In Macross Plus, the Ghost X-9 is shown destroying formations of older VF-11A's that've been converted to unmanned target aircraft specification. (Master File suggests quite a few VF-1's met their end this way, converted into QVF-1 target drones for training with live weapons.) Macross 7 Trash shows the Macross 7 fleet using old VF-4's as training aircraft in Mahara's flashbacks. The Macross Frontier novelization has what is probably the worst offender, the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army uses an eclectic mix of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Generation General Galaxy-made Valkyries that've been modernized and modified to keep them viable. When all is said and done, the march of technological advancement seems to mean a Valkyrie design has around 30 years of life to it before the miltary considers it to be at end-of-life and retires it. In the years immediately following the First Space War, the New UN Government had to make do with what it had. The VF-4 was an excellent space fighter, but only a mediocre atmospheric dogfighter because of its design. The large main wing that incorporated the thermonuclear ramjets and fuel tanks that made the VF-4 very fast in straightline travel and reduced the need for conformal tanks or other optional gear in space made it more stable in atmosphere and thus negatively impacted maneuverability. This is why so many 2nd Generation designs are not all-regime Valkyries like the VF-1, but supplements to the VF-4 that replace it in roles in atmospheric operations where it is an iffy performer like the VF-5, VF-5000, and VF-9. I've read that the VF-4D/S had an unusually high difficulty in CATOBAR operations since its shape was unconducive to the appropriate landing angle to catch the wires. Very little is said about the atmospheric variants. AFAIK, their one and only appearance in an official work has been Macross R, where Bilra Transport sponsored a pilot who uses a disarmed (literally and figuratively) VF-4S. It's something that was released with a garage kit. Officially, the VF-4 doesn't have/use a Super Pack in Macross's main timeline. It doesn't really need one since it already has rocket boosters built into it and its body is designed for much more fuel storage than the VF-1 had. It did have one in Macross II's timeline, but it was closer in design to the original VF-1's (and so was the transformation).
  12. Seto Kaiba
    I think they're already well-committed to that point. More like "go see the movies if you want to help Big West understand the Macross fan demographics in the US and get an approximate idea of what our tastes are".
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Granted, but compilation movies aren't meant to be a franchise's ambassador to potential new fans even in Japan. They're for people who are already fans, to wring more money out of the initial investment for the sponsor and merchandising partners. Fathom Events is a specialist in limited engagement "event" screenings. For things like a movie returning to theaters briefly for a major anniversary of the property and so on. This kind of thing is what they do. A month or so back, they were the ones who coordinated a limited engagement return to theaters for Star Trek: the Motion Picture as part of it having recently been remastered, and their ad reel that was supposed to run before this showing (and did at the venue I went to) advertised similar anniversary revivals of The Thing and the first Men in Black. My read of it is that Big West is using these limited engagement screenings to sound out which titles have the most resonance with American audiences who know about it already and to "show the flag" by establishing a commercial history for the franchise in the states in preparation for a trademark registration ahead of home video and streaming releases. In short, it's market research.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    There was one weird moment with the subtitltes when Alto is visiting Ozma in the hospital. Most of the conspicuous English is subtitled... but when Canaria shows up in her first scene and says "disassociated amnesia" in English, there are no subs, and the subs come back when she says it again in Japanese.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    They dropped the ball pretty hard... the ad reel from Fathom that was supposed to be on loop before the screening started pounded home the subject of Part 2 on the 30th with all the subtlety of a piledriver, at intervals of about once every three minutes. It doesn't, but that's by design. The False Songstress and The Wings of Farewell changed the plot up quite a bit and the Vajra are more active participants in the story. The series never really depicted the Vajra as the massive threat they were talked up to be. The movies fixed that, so part 1 is basically introducing the key players and having the Vajra set up their badass credentials by supposedly destroying the entire Macross Galaxy fleet but for a handful of refugee ships. Admittedly for good reason... You have to remember these are effectively compilation movies. The movies are taking it as read that you've already seen the series. Right before the climax, when they try to arrest Grace, it does come out that Frontier and Galaxy are seeking the Vajra homeworld for its resources... meaning fold quartz, though that'll be discussed in more detail in part 2 and the movie assumes you'd already know that from the series. The Vajra are big and dangerous, and the audience knows that Galaxy did something to piss them off, but the movie does set the Galaxy fleet up as the greater scope villains for Part 2.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Nah, just a jab at the terrible ergonomics of general-use corporate office furniture. It's awkward, uncomfortable, lowest-bidder garbage even if you're not a Zentradi-sized bloke like me. (At my job, I have seldom felt as much kinship for Zentradi Regult pilots as when I had to pretzel myself into a Fiat 500e.)
  17. Seto Kaiba
    The screening just ended here in my corner of MI. It went extremely well, though the audio mix felt a bit wonky. All in all, I'm extremely happy I went. To think I'd be able to see these in an actual theater. It's positively cause to be giddy.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    A line of reasoning which suggests the Protoculture didn't go extinct, they merely went undercover among humans as manufacturers of cubicles and other office furniture.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    The kanji they use for it is 重攻撃機 (Juu kougeki-ki), "Heavy Attack Aircraft". It's not a fighter pod, it's more analogous to an attack plane like the A-10A Thunderbolt II or an attack gunship like the AC-130 Spectre/Spooky.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    Pretty much, yes... though that was the defense force of an established colony from a 1st or 2nd Generation emigrant fleet. Each successive generation got much larger. Macross M3 introduced a class of space stealth cruiser in the Dancing Skulls mothership Algenicus. Since its class was never identified, most fans refer to it as the Algenicus-class or Algenicus-type. Max's service history also mentions one other cruiser he served aboard, the Haruna (class unspecified). There were also cruisers among the ship designs used by the Varauta colony, which would/should have been a contemporary of the Spica III colony. (The only one mentioned after is the Northampton-derived stealth cruiser from Macross Frontier and later which has never received a class name. It has an informal nickname of the Osaka-class thanks to Circle FANKY's Battleships of the Galaxy doujin.) It's actually considered an Armored Pack, not a Super Pack. It's pretty minimal, just some extra armor to protect the legs/engines with some verniers built in and an armored segment to protect above the cockpit with some micro-missile launchers. It's not explicitly said whether or not the AAS-171 Armored Pack could be taken by the base model VF-171 Block II model, but in the Macross Frontier movies the improved Block IIIF (3F) model that is outwardly identical to the Block II is shown using it so the answer is probably yes. Armaments-wise, it's just a couple micro-missiles in the launchers on either side of the cockpit. Nothing major. It's mostly about improving defensive ability. There's a Regult converted for operation by three miclones in the original series... that's how the Zentradi spy trio get away after their mission is done and carry all the stuff they've bought or nicked back to the Vrlitwhai Branch Fleet. That said, given the (comparatively) low level of automation and low survivability of the Regult, the complexity of the Queadluun-Rau's control system, and the usage of the military as a sort of halfway house for Zentradi who had trouble adjusting to Earth's culture, there probably wasn't a lot of demand for miclone-pilotable versions. It's actually a bit surprising that the Zentradi were willing to keep using the Regult given that it's described as being a bit of an ergonomic nightmare... but a dose of the familiar probably went a ways towards keeping them calm.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    That's one of the bigger problems with estimating the exact size of the New UN Forces and New UN Government... good luck determining what constitutes a "typical" fleet past about the mid-2020s.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    It's a weird place to end a season, that's for sure. With a closing title card like that, I wonder if they'll do a season four or not. Esp. since the light novel doesn't end on such a sad note at that point. It veers more or less straight back into comedy when she meets her new adoptive families and parks there for the duration as she begins a printing-focused rampage with blueblood financial clout behind her. Especially once Karstadt's wife gets involved. If they do pick up from there, it'll be interesting to see how far they run with it... it kind of bogs down after the timeskip between parts 3 and 4. That said, I am glad for a few omissions in the anime version...
  23. Seto Kaiba
    For what it's worth, we do see some features that suggest the first few New Macross fleets used the old ARMD II-class as well... so it may be close to the mark. It's probably just an eccentricity of the Northampton-class itself... even in the Macross 7 Trash manga, the docking umbilical's connector is on the side of the bridge tower.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    There is that, yes... but what I was getting at has more to do with the problematic writing in Macross Delta. Namely, the tendency of the show's writers to toss out dramatic plot twists and reveals with significant implications and completely forget about them by the end of the episode or even the end of the scene. My favorite example of this being late in the Macross Delta TV series when the main trio are captured and put on trial. Mirage tries to invoke prisoner of war protections under the spacefuture equivalent of the Geneva Conventions and is told flat out she can't because, as a mercenary, she's not a lawful combatant. She is somehow surprised by this despite the fact that that should be common knowledge in her line of work, that she should have learned as much in officer training in the Spacy, and that it is not exactly a new legal development being that laws to that effect have been on the books since 1978's Protocol I almost 90 years previous. The story tries to play this decision off as unfair despite presenting it as legally correct and then it is promptly forgotten as soon as the courtroom drama is over and never mentioned again. It's the same deal with Wright. Yeah, the series harps on at great length about what a great guy he was and that he was the one who unintentionally bombed Carlyle off the map... but it tries to hastily change the topic anytime the subject starts to stray towards Wright's own major contributions to the disaster. He waited until he was in the air with an armed dimensional warhead to start refusing orders and stalled for time by refusing to leave a holding pattern over a major population center and arguing with flight control. Wright may not have pulled the trigger, but he was the one who recklessly gambled with the lives of everyone in Carlyle and lost. The series tries to put all the blame on the Spacy brass who overrode Wright's controls at the last second, but forgets that it established that it was at the last second and that Wright was the one who decided to do circles over a city while carrying the bomb.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    There is a saying... "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Wright Immelmann was a good man trying to do what he thought was right. Meaning well is no guarantee that what you want to do to help is necessarily actually helpful or the right thing to do in that situation. He tried to save as many lives as possible because he cared about the Windermereans, but his well-intentioned interference ended up getting millions of civilians killed because of how he went about it. He waited until he was in the air with an armed dimensional warhead to object, which is very much too late to have a good way out. Dropping the bomb would make him a war criminal because those weapons are banned except under very special circumstances (that the situation met, but this was being done covertly). Surrender would leave a dimensional bomb in the hands of an unstable, highly irrational, and increasingly desperate autocrat on the losing side of a war and either get him tried for war crimes, treason, or both if he was still alive after the New UN Forces eventually won by attrition. Not dropping it meant that he was playing the galaxy's most dangerous game of hot potato until one or both sides got sick of his antics and decided to shoot him down. He waited until there was no good answer to have his particular crisis of conscience. Like several other areas (e.g. Xaos unlawfully participating in a declared war) the series is kind of in a rush to skip past the unfortunate implications surrounding the designated heroes. The series did make an effort to drive home that it was a tragedy and a totally senseless loss of life in general. I'm not sure it necessarily tried to make the audience feel bad for Wright or Hayate given that the Windermereans suffered far worse, and they do go out of their way to show Hayate what happened. The Sv-303 Vivasvat is probably not all THAT uber... after all, while it does take out both the Aerial Knights and Delta Flight initially, neither side are exactly first-rate forces. The Aerial Knights were almost entirely combat virgins prior to the 2067 war with the NUNG and all their most experienced pilots died in the war including the White Knight and the knight commander. That Bogue is their top ace says a lot, given that he had never seen unstimulated combat before the events of episode 1 and he was the youngest and the least experienced member of Keith's unit. Delta Flight is similarly bereft of its top ace's skills since Messer died in the war, and its elite troops are mostly washouts from local NUNS forces (not exactly top tier). The unmanned Vivasvat has the advantage of being controlled remotely by a quantum supercomputer AI, so even if it doesn't outclass them too badly on specs it has reaction time and coordination ability in its corner. The YF-29 supposedly stomps them, but then that's with Max at the stick... which goes beyond his usual one man army status to feeling like bullying, with The Strongest Pilot piloting The Strongest Valkyrie.
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