Seto Kaiba

"The beauty of recycling footage."

I only glanced over the sheet briefly when it arrived, but the gunpod sheet's got the gunpods sorted by type... and the VF-17's gunpod was put together with another field-reloadable gatling cannon, so odds are Chronicle says that it's a gatling cannon. All the art of it that I've ever seen has it down as a gatling cannon, even going so far as to show the barrel assembly without the magazine in place.

Seto stealthily sneaks back into the thread after several days of absence Not really, no. Apart from a few small groups on RPOL and Palladium's message boards, there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in actually playing the RPG. A lot of the fans I've talked to have either purchased the book to use it as a sort of tech manual. Most of those who actually bought the books with the intent to play the game can't find enough interested fans in their immediate area to get a game started. I didn't buy it, but I borrowed a copy from someone gullible enough to send out for it (the local bookstores won't stock it because they know it won't sell) and it seems to be pretty much a retread of the old books, with the MDC values adjusted and a fair bit of mediocre new lineart.

Nah, they already did the colonization thing in Sentinels... they actually even touch on it in the "Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" comics. The booster assemblies for the "neutron-s missiles" are actually old Angel-class colony ships that were going to be retrofitted as bulk cargo haulers. They're trying to rip off Battlestar Galactica, with a ship full of soldiers and civilians fighting a running battle against evil robots. Nah, I doubt they'll kill her... they need an obviously-crowbarred-in love interest for "Scott".

He's living in his own little world... he has been since day 1. It's a strange world, populated by all the major fictional creatures... leprechauns... fairies... unicorns... people who liked Robotech 3000... he likes to think that he actually had an influence on Macross, and like Kevin McKeever so often claims, thinks his hackjob rewrite with lousy synth-pop music was a dramatic improvement on the original. He is, of course, completely wrong. As I've illustrated many times before, Harmony Gold doesn't want to do that because tie-ins with the original series are literally all that's keeping the franchise intact. Finding out what had happened to Rick Hunter and the SDF-3 was far and away the most popular reason why people bought Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles. Every time Harmony Gold has tried to move away from the original three sagas, the fanbase has crucified them for it. That's why the new "Shadow saga" is just a continuation of the "New Generation". History offers us several damning pieces of evidence that make it painfully obvious that the men in charge of Robotech can't write good original material. Their one brave stab at telling their own story (Robotech 3000) was so poorly received that it never made it past the production of the teaser trailer. All that has changed between the original creative staff and the current creative staff is the title of the sci-fi series they're trying to imitate... Carl Macek and company wanted Robotech to be Star Trek. Tommy Yune and company want Robotech to be Battlestar Galactica.

Wanz has this really bad habit of quoting things he half-remembers me saying... I just stepped in to offer my genuine thoughts on the subject... (yes, I don't care for Macross 7, and I find Macross Frontier only so-so... Macross II was the last one in the storytelling tradition of the original... after that it went to some new and not necessarily good places) Considering the horrid mess that was Carl Macek's vision for Robotech's future, is that necessarily a bad thing? If there's one thing the damn near continuous failure of Robotech title after Robotech title on every media format illustrated, it's that Robotech fans have a crippling fear of new and original ideas. They want the same tired, boring, predictable stuff with familiar characters and stories. Think of it not as a sci-fi or action series, but as a giant robot soap opera... What I can't get is why Carl Macek continually acted as though Robotech was his story... even in his interviews he acted like the whole thing was his opus, instead of just a rewrite. He had to know anybody with a brain would figure out it wasn't his writing... I tried to explain that to Tommy Yune once... he didn't get it. Robotech's creators don't feel safe when they have to come up with a story and characters and setting all their own, for them it's much more comfortable to write a big, convoluted fanfic using somebody else's characters, mecha, and overall plot. In this case, Genesis Climber Mospeada. Yeah, there is a lot of irony in that... though it doesn't really stop there... Not only is the "Masters Saga" the most reviled of the original three sagas, but the other story that's integral to the ongoing plot (Robotech II: the Sentinels) is a close runner-up in terms of the fans least-favorite saga... and everything in Shadow Chronicles hinges on it. Even the new alien race debuted in Sentinels. Yet the fans usually answer please for more information about Sentinels with "to hell with that poo!".

That's what Tommy Yune tried to do with the continuity reboot comics... he made Leonard, Edwards, and a few others into corrupt, power-hungry, and often treasonous fellows to explain why they worked so hard to gain power... Nah... I consider the popularity of Macross 7 proof that most of humanity has gone what is medically known as snoop-the-loopy... I consider Macross II: Lovers Again to be the last true Macross sequel, and everything produced after Macross Plus to be Kawamori's attempt to prove P.T. Barnum right... "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public". Oddly, looking at Robotech sequels... I think Harmony Gold's decision to toss Carl Macek out on his ear and bring in Tommy Yune was actually the best judgement call they ever made. I get the feeling Macek hero-worshipped Gene Roddenberry, because he was trying his hardest to turn Robotech into Star Trek with Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech III: the Odyssey.

No, they never make any attempt to explain why the military completely changes uniforms, mecha, and technology every ten years or so. It's part of why the transition between sagas in Robotech occurs with an almost audible clunk. Yeah, but those are comics... poorly written, and often crudely drawn, attempts to bridge the gaps between the various sagas and add (often unnecessary and uninteresting) side stories to broaden the continuity. Fortunately, the whole confused mess done before 2002 has been thrown out. All the same, the comics by Eternity/Malibu, Academy, and Antarctic are more than enough to justify them losing the licenses to Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada in my book... those, coupled with disasters like Robotech II: the Sentinels and Robotech 3000, are proof beyond any shadow of a doubt that Harmony Gold doesn't have a goddamn clue what they're doing with Robotech.

I heard about Robotech being made from three different shows before I even started watching... the friend who got me started on it gave me a heads-up before he lent me the tapes.

Wait, you mean that wasn't Hideo Kuze from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig?

The first and third images are from the Macross: Eternal Love Song game manual. The second image is from the Macross 2036: the Neld Fleet Incident game manual. They're the new models of power armor used by the Burado and Neld fleets respectively. There's precious little art in the game manuals... which is why I'm waiting to hear back from the developers on my request for production art from the games.

I don't know about that... prior to the release of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles the Robotech fanbase was so starved for new ANYTHING that they were thrilled to have even a mediocre film like Shadow Chronicles, and often go to great lengths to defend it. It's not hard to live up to their standards, because their standards are as low as it gets. True, there are some fans who will never be happy with the direction Robotech is taking, but those are usually the fans who could fairly be called closet Macross fans, who are just sticking it out to see what happened to their favorite holdovers from Macross. While I agree that Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is inferior in pretty much every way to even the worst of Macross, and that it did fail spectacularly to live up to the fan hype and Harmony Gold's excessively optimistic expectations, it was a new Robotech feature, and that's all most of the fans really wanted. The only people who were disappointed by the film were the Robotech fans who weren't so desperate for new material that they put aside their standards.

Well, most of those games did have character designs by Haruhiko Mikimoto... so it's not surprising that they look similar. Haruhiko Mikimoto snuck a few Macross II-isms into Macross 7 Trash too... the "Historical District" of City-7 has a lot of the monuments from Culture Park, and the U.N. Spacy flightsuit is virtually identical to the version used in the alternate universe PC Engine games,just with the metal forearm and shin guards removed. I kinda think this tech-themed thread might be a little premature, since there's very little information available for the mecha of the alternate universe... a problem I'm working to solve... but since I appear to be the only one left who's working on this particular corner of the Macross universe, it's kind of slow going. T_T

Well, they'd been at it for at least a year when the project got the axe... it was supposed to come out in late 1987 or early 1988. When it got canceled, they'd already finished 3 episodes of its proposed 65 episode story.

Nope, not part of the alternate continuity... just one of the double handful of DYRL-based non-canon side stories.

Yeah, there is... there's a lot of corrections yet to be made. I've got the game manuals for Macross 2036 and Eternal Love Song on hand, they're being translated as part of my website project (a Compendium for the alternate universe).

No. It doesn't. The core of the Macross alternate universe timeline consists of... Macross: Do You Remember Love? Macross 2036: the Neld Fleet Incident (VG) Macross: Eternal Love Song (VG) Macross II: Lovers Again The various cinematics (particularly the opening) from the DYRL videogame is also applicable to the continuity, as are the five Macross II novels, and occasionally the manga adaptation, though not the unofficial side story "The Micron Conspiracy". RedWolf, just one naming correction for the moment... When the OVA first came out, the Metal Siren didn't have an official designation. The artbooks just refer to it as "Metal Siren" and the moon festival version as "Metal Siren Replica" (well, the engrish actually says "Metal Siren Leplica"). It was Palladium Books who came up with "VF-1MS" as a designation for it, and then proceeded to mix that up with a few various typos like "VF-MS" in their books. A while back, the official Macross website (Macross.co.jp) gave the Metal Siren a designation... "VA-1SS". That designation has since been repeatedly confirmed in the pages of Macross Chronicle.

I've been called many things by many people over the years... but a "yes man" is not one of them. My record speaks for itself... I'm about as far from being a yes man as it's possible to be. You, on the other hand... I'd also say that whining yourself inside-out because you don't like somebody else's sense of humor is about as low as it's possible to go, Sketchley. Unfortunately, you're probably right. With Roboblog out of the picture, the Robotech fanbase is left with a collection of blogs and podcasts which mainly follow the Harmony Gold company line, that Shadow Chronicles was god's gift to cinema, and that the franchise has never been better. RDF Underground's as close to neutral as it gets now, and it's really not much of a counterpoint to sell-outs like Space Station Liberty or Robotech Fan The Doug Bendo apeface Hour. Of course, most Robotech fans get their news directly from Robotech.com's news section and message boards anyway, so they probably don't really care. I doubt Tatsunoko will ever revoke Harmony Gold's licenses to Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada... the former is successful enough on its own, but it's a pretty safe bet that Southern Cross and Mospeada made more money as Robotech sagas than they ever did solo.

That'd probably be my doing... I got sick of waiting for the moderators to deal with him, so I e-mailed Steve Yun about it. Yeah, Akt_m got the axe pretty quickly, but only because the moderators were actually paying attention. These days, the only moderators on Robotech.com's boards are Seifrietti Weisse, Maverick_LSC, and MEMO1DOMINION, none of whom pay much attention the Series & Stories, Production, Robotechnology, Macross, or debate sections of the site.

Okay! Now that my copy of Macross Chronicle #21 has arrived, I've gotten cracking on the translation of the VF-2SS Valkyrie II mechanics sheet... I ought to have it done by this weekend.

Semi-autonomous seems the most likely... full AI control is just asking for trouble...

Isn't it obvious? If Harmony Gold brought in people with standards, professionals with excellent credentials, or other individuals with a good, strong grip on reality, they might notice the gaping holes in the company's claims that Robotech is going strong and is incredibly popular. In their minds, it's probably better to hire the more fanatical members of the Robotech fanbase, who won't hesitate to distort the facts to make Robotech seem more popular and successful than it really is. EDIT: They probably work for less too... privilege of working on their favorite show and all that. They're harping on you because you don't (or can't) differentiate between hyperbole for comedic effect and the sort of crap BoK spews on a daily basis. Now that is a damn shame... JLS was one of the few popular Robotech bloggers who wouldn't let himself be used as a mouthpiece for Harmony Gold, and he gave up on his project out of frustration with the franchise's lack of motion.

Ah, there's certainly an interesting history to many of them... I've invested a lot of time (and a fair bit of money) digging up each and every little scrap of information I can find about the alternate universe timeline. I'm building a website that, when completed, will do for the alternate universe what the Macross Compendium and Macross Mecha Manual did for the main continuity. I've also contributed a lot of information to the Macross Mecha Manual's Macross II section. Actually... your progression's a bit off... the VF-1R is actually the "VF-1 Kai", the VF-4 isn't an ancestor of the VF-XX, the VF-2JA isn't a direct descendant of the VF-XX, and the Metal Siren's an attack plane, not a fighter, and is essentially not linked to the VF-2SS at all... it's complicated, and there's actually a really good (and kind of blatantly obvious) reason there were essentially no new designs between 2014 and 2054. Well, the reasons for that are twofold... first, the Neld and Burado fleets were using a more diverse selection of mecha than the Boddole Zer fleet, and second, Quamzin apparently designed at least two new types of mecha for them based on his experiences on Earth.

Exactly what the labels say they are... "Rogren-Rau" and "Shigunomiyu" respectively. The game manuals call the "Shigunomiyu" the "Shigunomiyuuru". The Rogren-Rau is a boss mecha from stage 3 of Macross 2036, the Shigunomyuuru is a boss mecha from stage 5.

Problem is, B-Club can't seem to make up its mind whether the gunpods are railguns or beam rifles, and the official artbooks remain mysteriously mute on the subject, leaving the four (technically five) models of gunpod identified only as "gunpod". It doesn't help that the animation makes most of the gunpods out to be beam rifles, and the SAP pack's big cannon as a converging beam cannon rather than the railgun most sources say it is. I'll spare you guys the breakdown of what all the sources say, since it's too long for me to comfortably retype in the time available to me. (Fortunately, this sort of confusion is limited solely to the gunpods, the SAP pack's big cannon, and the main mounts on the Defender EX, everything else is well accounted for and consistent across all sources) EDIT: My copy of Macross Chronicle #21 should've arrived today, so I'll leap right in and sort this out right away.