Seto Kaiba

Likewise... and I doubt that racing will be all they do, since there's already been mention of a New UN Spacy special forces unit that uses the VF-19EF Caliburn. At this point, I think it's a foregone conclusion that they'll have some kind of combat in the story. I can't imagine it would go over well with the populace at large that they'd founded an expensive special forces unit with brand new VFs just to race the guys from SMS for kicks. This is just me guessing wildly, but I can't shake the feeling this whole racing thing with EX-Gear and possibly ISC-equipped VF-19s is a way of evaluating both technologies under operational conditions to further the development of the VF-25. Bah... not likely. You made a fuss even though I pointed out that there was no evidence of inconsistency, so I humored you and checked every source I could lay hands on to see if another number was offered... and found no evidence to support the "mistake or typo" theory. I do agree the size given is odd... but that's more a topic for another thread. Speaking of, I gotta go revive the Chronicle Translations thread for an interesting VF-22-related revelation.

Uh-huh... at least, according to the size comparison in This is Animation Special #5: Macross II.

Yeah, it does... and I think I might know why. Earlier tonight, I was having a chat with Talos about the VF-171 and how it looks like it should be more than just .02m longer than the VF-17, and while I was checking a couple different publications to confirm the size given in Macross Chronicle I noticed something unexpected. In the "VF Evolutionary Theory" article in Great Mechanics.DX 9, the commentary in the VF-25 section (pp16-17) mentions that equipping the VF-19 with an inertia store converter was expected to be economical during development of the YF-24. IIRC, the VF-25 and VF-27 keep their inertia store converters in the aircraft's nose... and since the VF-19EF is already equipped with prototype EX-Gear it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that it might also be equipped with a developmental version of the VF-25's inertia store converter, necessitating the remodeling of the aircraft's nose. Easily explained... it started with "Why a monkey model", and then a possible explanation emerged that the Earth forces keep all the best toys for themselves. Terrorism entered the picture as the obvious reason they started keeping all the best technology out of the hands of the colonists.

Because the VF-4's a wicked cool design that somehow doesn't get a lot of love from the powers that be? Personally, I not only like the design of the VF-4 in fighter mode... I love the unique and bizarre place it occupies in Macross's production history. It's the only variable fighter in Macross to have one fighter mode, but two totally different in-universe histories, names, transformations, and variant lists, both of which were created after it first debuted in fighter mode in Macross Flashback 2012. Until 1992, all we had was the fighter mode and the "VF-4" designation. Macross II's creators gave it its first transformation and a VF-1-like battroid mode, equipped it with a beam rifle and honest-to-goodness Gundam-style funnels, and dubbed it the "VF-4 Siren" for the canon game Macross: Eternal Love Song. Kawamori came back to the VF-4 and finished his version, the "VF-4 Lightning III" in 1995, and it first debuted in the 1998 main Macross continuity game Macross Digital Mission VF-X. Interesting food for thought... thanks sketchley.

Just about every Macross show has a faster pace than Macross 7, partly due to its greater length and partly due to it wasting about 22 episodes before they make any progress with the plot. This is, of course, not to say that Macross Frontier's pacing is perfect or even close to it. In the first half, the show has to be dragged kicking and screaming away from its school drama for some Macross-style woosh crikey fighter action. Near the end of the series, it's like the show's creators suddenly realized they were only doing 25 episodes and had to wrap things up with almost indecent haste. Still, it balances out better than 7, though I think I agree with the oft-voiced sentiment that ~36 episodes is the "butter zone" for a Macross series. 7 could've stood to be shorter, and the Frontier series could've stood to be longer. In my experience, the very arguments you've cited in defense of the Vajra concept are usually the reasons that people cite for not liking them. In order to empathize with a character, you have to be able to understand their motivations and interactions. The human(oid) antagonists in Macross have human-like emotions, react to things in human-like ways, and have motivations that are easy enough to understand from a human perspective. The Vajra are utterly inscrutable... their motivations are impossible to understand without a humanoid character "in the know" explaining them flat-out, and they have no personality at all. They're a faceless, voiceless, generally purposeless antagonist until Grace rolls in and takes over, giving them a set of motivations we can understand. We don't find out why they've been shooting up the Frontier fleet until the very last episode, when Ranka has to explain it to everyone.

Huh... yeah, I don't recall seeing that one before. What book/magazine is it from?

Alas... that one slipped by me. I didn't even consider the others, since I was thinking more about stuff after the Space War 1 era, but those are definitely worth noting as possible (or confirmed) electronic warfare units. I am curious... could you tell me which source mentions the recon-variant QF-3000? That's a new one on me. Technically, yes... their designations label them as recon planes rather than dedicated craft for EW/AEW/ELINT roles. However, the official specs do say the RVF-171, RVF-171EX, and RVF-25 are capable of filling both early warning and electronic warfare roles. The Compendium articles even describe them as being early warning or electronic warfare variants rather than straight-up recon planes. In the RVF-25's case, there's even mention of specialized hardware for electronic warfare use (an AE-35 custom electronic warfare system booster unit in the avionics bay). We do get to see them used in this capacity in the series as well... the first VF-171 we see is an RVF model operating as an early warning unit, and I already mentioned the time Luca's RVF-171EX was used for electronic attack operations in my last post.

Sure has... there are radome-equipped versions of the VF-11C, VF-17D, VF-171, and VF-25 that are presumably capable of pulling EW duty in addition to their usual recon/AEW and ELINT duties. We do briefly get to see the NUNS using RVF-171EX's conducting communications jamming to keep the Vajra from communicating data about their new weapons to the hive mind. Mind you, I don't think there's been a specialized EW unit since the VF-1's generation... the "Funny Chinese" and "ELINT Seeker" respectively. EDIT: On the non-canon front, there are two VF-19 variants mentioned as being radome-equipped... the VEF-19D and VEF-19E. IIRC, VF-Experiment was just an original design series that was never meant to amount to anything. They didn't really do anything with either one, and Kawamori has said that they aren't part of the series chronology.

Yes, I know... I said as much in my very next sentence. The point I was trying to make was that there hasn't been any official (in-universe) line that I'm aware of to explain why the VF-25 is the only fighter in the Macross Frontier series that doesn't have internal munitions storage of some kind. Eh... well, we never really get to see either the VF-11 or the VF-25 operating in purely atmospheric combat in animated Macross features. The vast majority of the show's combat takes place in space, so when we do get atmospheric combat it's usually preceded by orbital insertion... which kind of rules out carrying wing-mounted ordinance. On those rare occasions, combat was either not expected (Macross Frontier "Fastest Delivery"), or they've equipped it with atmospheric-use super parts (see here and here). Just because we don't get to see VF-11s and VF-25s using wing-mounted hardpoints doesn't mean they can't take them. I don't know if we've had anything on that note for the VF-11, but the VF-25 has six underwing hardpoints... they're just not used because they get in the way of all three sets of super parts. As Talos stated, the VF-11C's leg bays weren't originally part of the final design... they were included in Macross 7 episode #44 "Nightmarish Invasion" as a place for the VF-11 to store the reaction weapons they were supposed to be attacking the Protodeviln with. They never actually get a shot off with them, so it all comes to nothing. Depends... there are one or two cases where the "FAST pack" moniker fits, though in most cases the "sensor" part seems to be absent. The available cutaways and detailed descriptions from various sources indicate that most of the time it's just fuel and weaponry. The one exception that leaps to mind is the APS-25A/MF25 armor packs for the VF-25, which do include a compound sensor antenna in addition to lots of missiles and fuel. The term "FAST pack" generally probably doesn't fit though... which is likely why they stick to more purpose-specific nomenclature like "super pack", "armored pack", "aegis pack", etc. depending on what the actual equipment is.

It was foisted on them when they partnered with Revell in order to support the series with Macross merchandise.

Your guess is as good as mine... the only explanation I can think of to account for it is that Shoji Kawamori said he was trying to move away from the passively stealthy silhouettes of current real-world fighters. If there is an in-universe explanation for why the VF-25's airframe seems as much a throwback as it is a next-generation unit, I'm not aware of it. The logical assumption is that the extensive use of active stealth means that they just don't need to cram everything into the interior anymore to maintain stealthiness... and the various augmentation packs are certainly far more heavily armed than any internal bays could be.

Granted, Ozma is fairly contemptuous of the New UN Spacy forces in the Macross Frontier series... but he isn't anything like impartial, being that he's a former NUNS pilot who quit out of guilt and he's being snide from behind the relative safety of a next-gen VF with battleship-grade armor and enough firepower to let him fight the Vajra on an even footing. I doubt he'd be so cavalier about it if he were the one in flying the VF-171. Eh... at the beginning of the series, SMS is still using next-gen weaponry against the Vajra. They stick to the gunpods a lot, and by all indications we're talking about AP rounds of significantly greater power in a caliber nearly half-again as large as that used by the previous generations. The description of the VF-19 "monkey model" on the website for Macross the Ride suggests that it needed significant modifications to prevent the GU-17A's greater recoil from damaging the airframe... that alone speaks to a substantial increase in firepower. Oh, I don't deny it... SMS is one "allies of justice" complex short of being Mithril. All I'm saying is that the NUNS isn't incompetent, they're just hamstrung by bureaucracy and lacking the bleeding edge weaponry necessary to be big damn heroes like SMS. ;-)

To be frank, I think it's a question of the connotations attached to terms like "rebel" and "terrorist". The handful of anti-government organizations that figure prominently in Macross stories are almost invariably the "bad guys". I suppose that, in practice, the distinction between a "rebel" and a "terrorist" ultimately comes down to whose side you're on. The use of "rebel" can carry the connotation of someone fighting the good and noble fight against an unjust or oppressive government. By the opposite token, use of a term like "terrorist" or "insurgent" usually carries the negative connotation of having used cowardly and morally reprehensible tactics to oppose the legitimate government. In the end, the reason the various anti-government factions in Macross are called "terrorists" is because the story is invariably told from the UN's side... though the groups in question always do something that ensures they richly deserve that particular label.

Oh, totally... the one thing I can't tell you is why kids love cinnamon toast crunch. 'kay... nothing's been said here that's worth getting that upset about. You were right that what's hamstringing the New UN Spacy is an excessive bureaucracy, that much is easily supportable. The only problem was the few assumptions you made based on that... e.g. that the NUNS is an inexperienced, incompetent batch of idjuts with dated and inadequate equipment. Their problem (aside from all the bureaucracy) is that they're a well-equipped and highly versatile force that got stuck fighting an enemy that gave the galaxy's greatest civilization pause for thought and only the newest and most advanced weapons (the not-approved-for-military-adoption VF-25) had what it takes to fight them on a level footing.

Oh, it went right over my head too... he and I were talking on MSN at the time, and he seemed surprised that it wasn't immediately obvious. I had to browbeat him into explaining what he meant, since I originally thought he meant something to do with ace pilot Max Ritter von Müller, another Blue Max winner from Bavaria. You actually seem to have hit pretty close to the mark without realizing it, though the only way anyone would get it right off the bat would be if they knew a fair bit about religious demographics in Germany. As I understand it, the reasoning behind his suggestion that Max might be from southern Germany is based on the size of his family... since Roman Catholicism is far and away the most popular religion around Bavaria, and the stereotype is that Roman Catholics have huge families (e.g. Monty Python's The Meaning of Life).

Huh... I could actually see them being able to use it as a music unit, since Ishtar rides in the back seat of Hibiki's VC-079 a few times in the OVA and she's the show's main vocalist. Still, I'm really curious to see how the photo mechanic is going to work in gameplay... what'll a PSP set me back if I buy it new nowadays?

Eh... from a strictly canon perspective, the SNN Valkyrie is more unarmed than the VT-1. As a flight/combat training machine, the VT-1 could theoretically be fitted with live weapons if circumstances demanded it... however, the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie used by SNN was designed from the ground up as a civilian plane, and has neither mounting stations to take weaponry nor the onboard hardware to support missiles and gunpods and all that good stuff. Mind you, the game isn't required to follow that to the letter, but I can't imagine why they'd try to have people dogfight in the far future equivalent of a news helicopter...

Nah, that's definitely Sylvie Gena in the screen captures there... but if this one turns out to have a full Macross II campaign, I may very well finally shell out for a PSP. Yes, yes it would... I've got no idea how they're going to fit the SNN Valkyrie in there though. It's unarmed and doesn't even have a battroid mode, so I can't imagine there'd be much shooting going on with it. I really doubt we'll see the Macross Cannons as playable mecha though... after all, the bloody things are 6 kilometers long in cruiser mode.

You might not have said it explicitly... but you were certainly heading that way. The VF-171 was neither as old as you claimed, nor is it merely an upgrade of the existing version. There were some fairly significant changes between the VF-17 and VF-171, including (but not limited to) a redesigned airframe with better performance in atmospheric flight, better stealth and defensive systems, and improved ease of control. But for the having the engines downtuned, the relationship between the VF-17 and VF-171 is more like that of the F/A-18C/D Hornet and the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Oh, the series does explain why the New UN Spacy forces attached to the Macross Frontier fleet aren't taking center stage... and that ain't why. Luca and Michel's dialogue in episode 4 explains that the reason the gov't keeps sending SMS to do everything is that mobilizing SMS involves a lot less red tape than mobilizing troops from the NUNS garrison to do the same job. That is why they keep giving missions to SMS. Bureaucracy, not incompetence or a lack of capability. Once the NUNS upgrades its gear for greater effectiveness against the Vajra, they prove they're just as capable as SMS (if not moreso, numerical advantage and all) at wrecking the Vajra's sh*t.

Uh... I know this is a bit of a non sequitur, but you're misrepresenting things a bit. The VF-171 isn't an upgrade version of the VF-17, it's a new aircraft developed from the VF-17. It's also not twenty years old. The Nightmare Plus's first flight was in 2046, and by all indications it didn't enter service until the 2050s. It's described as highly versatile and cost-effective, with balanced performance and outstanding maneuverability. It's hardly the discount clunker you're painting it as. It got punk'd by the Vajra because they're every bit as painfully uber as the next-gen VF-25 and VF-27, not because it was substandard.

An interesting question to be sure... but unfortunately one I don't think we have an answer for, unless they're going to provide one later in Macross the Ride. Personally, I'm inclined to suspect that this whole "Earth forces keeping all the best tech for themselves" thing is a fairly recent development in the Macross universe. The first we hear of this is in the VF-25's generation, which emerged after the decentralization of the UN Gov't gave the colonies autonomy and the marked upswing in anti-government terrorist activity between 2048 and 2051. The only unit developed prior to that that we could honestly label a "monkey model" is the VF-19P... at least on the basis of its downtuned engines, changes in armament, etc.. (though Master File has more to say on that note, indicating that there were also functional restrictions were imposed on the avionics, and the target acquisition rate for the micro-missile launchers was slowed) Vindirance's 2051 coup attempt was probably a pretty big factor in the governmental reorganization even tho Kawamori says it wasn't the actual cause, so I'd be inclined to suspect the reason the Earth forces started to keep the best technology for themselves was because they got sick of seeing their own hardware being used against them by anti-government terrorist organizations. Switching to a policy of giving the now-independent colony fleets less capable export models would be the best way to ensure they had a leg-up if it were ever to happen again. Even though there's bound to be some customization and variation in the locally-produced VFs prior to that decision, we've never seen any prior indication that the main variable fighters used by the colony fleets were less capable than their Earth forces counterparts (e.g. VF-11B and -C). It'll be interesting to see how it turns out... most of the novels are retellings of events from the animation, but this one might be more along the lines of Macross 7 Trash if it doesn't conflict with the established (and minimal) backstory of the Macross Frontier series. I wouldn't mind seeing this animated if it really does take off... though I'm still hoping against hope for them to animate Macross the First.

's not what I meant... I thought it was clear, but what I was talking about was the way Harmony Gold wants to profit from Macross licensing even if they're not the licensee via that trademark on the Macross name and logo in the US. Oh... that. Yeah, that thing's in the book under "Invid Overlord", but it's only a sidebar piece with a single comic book panel and the line art shrunk down to postage stamp size.

To be honest, ever since I first heard Tommy Yune's own (brief) account of how Harmony Gold came to Big West to talk about licensing for the rest of Macross and was turned away, I've always suspected that their chances of cooperating successfully with Big West were nixed long before they ever proposed it. After all, they did ignite a costly legal battle that raged for years between Big West and Tatsunoko over ownership of the original Macross series and the sequels. Considering the general sleaziness of Harmony Gold's business practices, I'm far more inclined to suspect that it was more an attempted Mafia-style shakedown than a negotiation... something along the lines of "If you want to distribute your product on our turf, you gotta give us a cut". Eh... some of it is, but a most of what you've listed isn't. The book does contain the color sketches and other concept art for the characters... on the other hand, there's no art for (or mention of) a hover cyclone concept, transforming Ark Angel, Robotech Factory, "Gosamu", or the Gamma Fighter. If you went solely by that book, you would expect that the designs for the Shadow Chronicles movie were shat into being and then endured only minimal revision before the final product.

Dunno... it's supposed to be a serialized novel, so I would expect it to be no more canon than any of the other Macross novelizations, which generally aren't.

Granted, this transforming Ark Angel concept is a good deal boxier than the Battle-7... as one would expect of a design that attempts to blend into the boxy bland-a-thon of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA starship designs. It's an odd resemblance, but there's definitely some Battle-7 to be found in the ship's arms (particularly in the shoulder and hand) and a fair bit of the Macross-class to be found in the rest of it. Either way, there's no denying the Ark Angel concept is definitely an attempt to make Robotech's New Generation less of a bore by making it more like Macross. Unless the source of that rumor has access to some character concept art from Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles that never got published, I don't think there's any basis for that. Just for yuks, I dug out my copy of The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles and had a look at the concept art for the characters. On examination, I feel fairly confident in saying that there's no concept art there that bears even a passing resemblance to our man Gamlin. The preliminary sketch for Scott Bernard was the closest to Gamlin's appearance, but it still looks infinitely more like a Rob Liefeld sketch of Stick Bernard with bedhead and an anatomically improbable body. There's no way it was Alex Romero, since his preliminary sketch was a big fat guy with a flattop. Marcus Rush's prelim. art looks like he watched Star Wars and decided he desperately needed to have Luke Skywalker's hairdo. Maia Sterling has purple hair, but that's about as close as you'll get... and I'm pretty sure Gamlin wasn't a D-cup. No, I don't think so... by the time Harmony Gold announced the existence of what was then known as Robotech 2004, the most important parts of the legal dispute had already been ruled on and the dispute itself was nearly five years old. They had to have known, going into it, that the rest of Macross was beyond their reach. I doubt they would've planned for that, when to pull it off they would need the cooperation of a company they'd already severely pissed off by starting the whole legal battle with their jackassery.