Seto Kaiba

To me, it seems like Roy's drink of choice would either be a single-malt scotch, or maybe some half-decent brand of whiskey. Though if he's anything like most of the pilots I know, he'll drink any old thing so long as it's got enough alcohol content to justify using it to clean engine parts. Those guys live for the cheap stuff, the kind that doesn't even bother with a label. They've served me some seriously disgusting cheap hooch before, but they drink that stuff like it's water.

My gripe with the holographic cockpit isn't it's usefulness, but rather the sheer weight of problems in the implementation of it. For starters, by the look of it, you need true color video capture devices all over the plane to cover all those angles seamlessly, then you need the processing equipment to take the input from the cameras and make it into something the holographic projectors can use. Then you have to feed the data into the projectors, which would have to be all over the cockpit to achieve seamless 3D rendering all around the pilot. We're talking about adding an immensely complex system in not much space, when you're working with weight constraints. Add to that the fact that all that video processing is going to take time, at the absolute best, several fractions of a second, at worst, it might even be as much as a second behind. Ask yourself can you really afford to be fighting when all you can see is what happened a few seconds ago? A bullet or an energy beam can cover a lot of distance in those fractions of a second, so that lag could mean the death of the pilot. It's to a lesser extent than I originally stated back in the VF-2SS thread, but it IS happening, slowly but surely, the variable fighters of Kawamori's designs are taking on more and more of a gundam-like design aesthetic, and if Kawamori continues, it's likely that soon we'll start seeing that trend continue. I suppose part of it can be attributed to Gundam's status as one of the most universally recognizable animes out there. If you say gundam, even folks who've never actually watched it will at least have heard the name before. If only they'd all been there to stop Kawamori from making Macross 7 quite so damn goofy... if only... My hope is that Shoji Kawamori, as gifted as he is, will be left of out future Macross series production, for the sake of the continuity. At the moment he's rather painted them into a corner and severely damaged the credability of the series as one of the more serious and interesting sci-fi war series out there. Buddy, if I was an ATF agent, I wouldn'tve even used that crap to end the standoff at Waco, because the world does have laws against cruel and unusual punishment.

Kawamori would not let Macross II go without changing the mecha, they were one of the chief gripes about Macross II. That and that it didn't fit with Kawamori's disgustingly bad vision for the future of the Macross universe. I don't want Kawamori's designs anywhere near the Valkyrie II, the Icarus, or the Metal Siren. He can keep his wrist-lasers, his leg-mounted missile bays, and his impractical and overly-complicated holographic cockpit to himself. If we let him have at it, we'd end up with ultraman faces on the Valkyrie II, speakers EVERYWHERE, and the Macross Cannon would be fired by a little arcade-style gun on Nexx's console, just like the Battle 7's main gun. Letting Kawamori anywhere near the character design is just as bad if not worse. He'd turn Hibiki into a super-pilot civilian rockstar loser, Silvie into a brain-dead fangirl musician and give her valkyrie II breasts, and probably turn Nexx into yet another brain-fried loser like Gamlin. Plus he'd screw the music up so badly as to make the entire thing unwatchable. Of course he'd turn the Mardook into more Godzilla-like space monsters with super dimension magic and anima spirita. Personally, I think Macross is better off without Kawamori involved, and that any of the new Macross series should be done without him, and without whatever writer came up with Fire Bomber's songs. I'm not so sure about Kamjin being that allfired bad, he's at least got a sense of humor, which makes it a little easier to relate to him as a character. And Kamjin was pretty hardcore for a Zentradi, he didn't want to pull any punches, kind of like Ingues, when he went on a bombing spree across Earth, destroyed UN HQ, and generally went all Bodolzaa on the place.

Not only not likely to happen, but would you really want Kawamori getting his mitts on the Valkyrie II, Metal Siren and Icarus? I've seen where he's going with the future of mecha design in Macross Plus and Macross 7, and I think I'd much rather keep him uninvolved. The last thing we need is another VF-19 Kai.

That wouldn't be difficult, I've built custom machines to specifications given to me by clients that I would say would retail for around $13,000.00 USD. Of course me being a somewhat more savvy shopper than most, I can beat the retail average by a good $4,000.00 on a machine like that. It's all in knowing where to look for the parts you want. My first custom-built machine that I did for myself cost me exactly $200, and it outperformed computers that cost ten to twenty times that much. Every couple months the local anime & gaming society rents the fieldhouse at the local university for one of the state's largest LAN gaming sessions, some 400 people usually participate. That's why that guy needed an emergency fix, he was a major contender. Now that the horror of my final grading nightmare is upon me (see also, EXAM WEEK), I have a few days to grade several hundred exams, and yet I still find a little time to work on the site. Maybe I'll have something Thursday.

Ugh... I saw this and I just HAD to reply... before the thought makes me ill... you'd turn the Macross II Valkyries into disgusting imitations of the ones from Macross 7, adding impractical and occasionally suicidal elements to the design. Wrist mounted pulse lasers would be kind of impractical, because they wouldn't be usable in fighter mode, as the arms are on the underside and obstructed. The models that used those had the wrists in fighter mode locations where the weapons were usable. Leg-mounted missile bays raise their own problems, namely the idiocy of putting a volitile explosive device right on top of a nuclear-powered engine. If a shot were to cook off the ordinance, you'd probably not just blow the leg off, but likely blow the fighter up and kill the pilot. That and internal bays have a much lower capacity for mid-to-long range munitions than hardpoints/FAST packs, and without the option to jettison the ordinance quickly. Those few fighters with internal missile bays at least keep them well away from the engines. Also, just FYI, the VF-2JA does have what it termed by some to be it's own SAP pack system. Albiet it's just a series of wing-mounted missile launchers, since FAST packs make atmospheric flying a pain in a Valkyrie. Putting a big boxy FAST pack on a fighter designed for atmospheric dogfighting makes so little sense it borders on insanity. Personally I think most of the designs are fine just as they are. It's not like any of us know aerodynamics, combat aircraft design, or avionics better than the people who designed the fighters in the first place, so they've probably got good reasons for why things are the way they are. I might make a few cosmetic alterations, but nothing that would dramatically alter the design of the fighter, like jamming extra internal missile bays, pulse lasers and other mostly useless junk into it. I'd recess the cockpit of the VF-22 a little deeper in, so the pilot wouldn't need the cockpit bubble as much. I'd also change the profile of the VF-XX's legs a little bit, just for the sake of making them a little more uniform for walking stability. I'd strip the head laser/fin from the VF-22 as well, since it's never used and ornamental at that. I'd definately give the bridge of the Battle 7 a mute button so Max wouldn't have to listen to Basara molesting that microphone, and a self-destruct button for each of the Sound Force fighters at Max's station on the bridge, so he can get rid of them when they start screwing things up.

Well my estimate was smashed to all hell. Had a guy come to me for emergency repair on his PC. There's some huge LAN party going on tomorrow, and he needed not one, not two, but FOUR working GeForce 7900 GTX 512 video cards installed as an upgrade to his machine. The money was great, but it took me a while to get all four properly linked and configured. He's running Doom 3 at 2560x1600 at around 120fps right now, so I think he's satisfied with my work. So I'm once more behind schedule, but I've got a really light work schedule every day this week except Wednesday, so I'm not too worried.

An interesting design to say the least. I always liked the Sea Dart, and this seems like a nice testament to it's design. I also rather like the placement of the head unit during fighter mode, especially in the re-draw. Having the head mounted topside, ala VF-11, but with the cannons facing forward definately looks good. Ideally the barrels might want to be a little farther from the canopy. That aside, a very nice design. Kind of also reminds me of this...

Dude, wrong thing to say to me. I'm a M:tG player myself, and have been since the game first came out. Not to mention that my hygene is excellent, as is the hygene of many other M:tG players that I know. I frequent many game shops and never once have I experienced any kind of unpleasant odor. Some of the local gaming shops happen to be among my best customers too. I myself regularly compete in some of the local tournaments. I happen to be currently residing in Michigan, but that may or may not be subject to change without notice. I go where the money takes me, and thus far it seems to be prompting me to stay put. Of course that could change soon, since the governor is an incompotent baboon and the state's economy is sinking faster than the Edmund Fitzgerald. eBay, now there's a great way to lose lots of money quickly. I avoid them whenever possible, because there's been a lot of fraud and misrepresentation going on over there. Also, Tokyo ain't all it's cracked up to be, I've been there a few times now and I must say it's really a foriegn country... they do things exactly the same there. I'm about eight hours from having a presentable version of the web interface for my site working, though I'm hoping to find something better in the way of a texture to use for it. Right now it's a kind of flat, unpolished gunmetal texture right now, and it's really annoying me. I'm going to try for something a little more visually appealing and sci-fi-ish. Gonna try for something like enameled metal and glass, or maybe a somewhat more black plastic-like design. I'm going for a three-frame console look, so hopefully it'll turn out the way I want it to.

Well, I'm not that terribly far, not quite in Ohio, but close enough for the drive to be do-able if I'm willing to spend three hours in the car. There's lots of Macross fans out here, thankfully. So I have no shortage of people to get things done, it's just the small matter of keeping them on task. I've discovered it to be something akin to herding squirrels. Time, energy and resources? Actually if you think what I spend in terms of time on my site is excessive NOW, wait till you see how it starts becoming in the next month or so, when my number of obligations drops by one enormous load. I'll have enough idle hands around to really make a dent in the project. As for energy, I work myself to death at my job, and enjoy every last instant of it. Sort of like a hobby people give me obscene amounts of money for. This is just something I do with my free time. Resources? Well, all I've got is a bunch of overenthusiastic and overly hormonal fans who want to do something for the cause. Images... well, I'm pretty much set for images right now, Luis is doing a number on the huge mecha wishlist that we had on an almost hourly basis, and we've got a mess of stuff left to get together. I think we're pushing something like 1.6GB in resources. I hope to have some of it up by tomorrow morning, at the latest.

I second the fuzzy dice and inflatable afro. Phalanx, not every little thing needs it's own thread. Stop and consider if your thread will benefit the community before you post it, not after. It'll save you a lot of people griping at you.

Personally, I think Kevin might have been presenting the worst case scenario estimate for the damages as the actual amount in his previous claims. I doubt that Mr. Sheiring's damage to the company was quite THAT severe, if all he was doing was giving away free product every so often, or undercharging for services, not counting the stuff he supposedly stole from the company, to which a positive estimate of price cannot be assessed. The actual damages due to loss of inventory would've had to number some 71,000 or more books to even come close to reaching the outlandish amount of losses that Kevin's claiming Palladium suffered. Stealing original art, and the like might be a blow to the company, but it's hardly enough to cause that much damage to the company. The transparencies too... it's unlikely that that much damage was caused, even over the timeframe we're talking about, because they were obviously printing at least some of those titles while those transparencies were missing. That nobody noticed anything is perhaps the most unbelievable part of Kevin's story. All that inventory goes missing, and is never once accounted for, reported as lost, or even inspected over that long of a time? Unless their accounting people are dumber than the average by a goodly margin, then it just stretches his credability beyond what I and many others are willing to accept. Given common sense, and a healthy bit of reason, it's pretty obvious that either Sheiring did a LOT more than we're being told, or that Kevin is sorely overestimating the damages. I doubt that Palladium will fold because of this, I think that it's pretty likely they'll get the Robotech licence back and they'll be more or less back on their feet in about four or five years.

Let's see, even if he was secretly groomed for the operation by the military, disobeying orders, insubordination, recklessly and needlessly endangering both fellow soldiers and civilians, and running amok with an expensive and dangerious piece of experimental military hardware wouldn't just get him suspended from duty and stripped of his VF-19, it would more likely land him in the stockade, pending a court martial, and depending on the way the UN runs, possibly even a dishonorable discharge or a date with the firing squad. Plus I'm pretty sure that Basara's music violates the Geneva convention's provisions on torture. Since Basara is plainly a civilian, and therefore falls somewhat outside the bounds of military justice, it's patently ludicrous for him to be allowed to fly a variable fighter at all. Considering that he's flying a custom-built valkyrie so new that the military's elite forces don't have them yet, with a specialized control system and experimental weaponry, instead of an old clunker or a civilian model, it becomes even more odd and harder to believe. That he's doing so to fight a bunch of giant space monsters who are vulnerable to singing just stretches suspension of disbelief so far that it puts in it's two weeks notice. Though to me easily the most ludicrous thing in all Macross 7 was the manual control for the Battle 7's main gun. A little pistol with a gunsight that comes up out of the console in front of Max, like some kind of arcade. That's almost as bad as the little joystick that they used on the flop movie Star Trek Nemesis, as a manual control for the Enterprise E. Even though Macross II's storyline was admittedly taking something from DYRL and expanding on it, it still remains much more believable and relevant to the Macross timeline than Macross 7. The only civilians allowed in the combat zone are combat reporters, aka Hibiki and his cameraman Dennis. Since the military has control over what footage SNN airs, they obviously knew that Hibiki was flying up there. Combat reporters are nothing new, we have them today. The only difference is he was flying an unarmed plane instead of walking around as an unarmed reporter. His valkyrie was a civilian one, that had no battroid mode, no weapons, and was outfitted for the purpose of taking footage for the news. Hibiki never directly interfered with the combat operations, and did a few reckless things, but not nearly as many as Basara did. The only people who flew the newly constructed Metal Siren were the UN Spacy's elite, Nexx and Sylvie, who were both experienced pilots. The only time that Hibiki actually endangered military personnel was when he tried to take Ishtar back to Feff's ship, and even then, he didn't directly endanger anyone from the military or civilian populace. Never once was a civilian allowed in a military valkyrie with the intent that they fight, and only twice were civilians even allowed in at all, at the Moon Festival Airshow, which was pre-approved, and during a rescue operation, which was a necessity. For insubordination, and recklessly endangering herself, and for concealing the presence of an alien intruder, Sylvie got locked up in the stockade, pending a court martial hearing. For illegal use of emergency broadcast channels, breaking and entering into UN Headquarters, and for broadcasting combat footage not approved by the military, Hibiki got locked up in the stockade pending a hearing. That's much more in keeping with the way a military functions than what Macross 7 has. The only time they rely on singing as a weapon is when they're using Operation Minmay, and that's a sanctioned, proven military strategem that had been used against the Zentradi multiple times before with equal success. The reason it worked on the Marduk at the end was because it was one of their own emulators, and the troops were programmed to be manipulated by the songs sung by the emulators. There's nothing spiritual about it, no anima spirita, no nothing, this is a simple example of culture shock as a psychological weapon, and turning an enemy's mental conditioning against him. All told, there's a lot less in Macross II that I find hard to swallow than there is in Macross 7. Kawamori must've let his brain check out for a while.

Sounds like you keep almost as busy as I do. Today's my last official day of grading papers, then I'm free for the next four months, to pursue my goal of simply taking my mind off the hook for a while. I figure if the world wants to get in touch with me badly enough, it'll call back. At least that means not only a four-day weekend, but also the final testing of the new version of my site, and the implementation of the new interface for it. Bugtesting and validation is a cast-iron bitch at the moment, I'm not taking Dreamweaver 8's word for it and I'm double checking each page using IE6, IE7, NS7, NS8, FF1.5, and OP7. That's a consistant enough mix that if the page loads in all of them, pretty much anything running Windows, MacOS, Linux or Unix should be able to interpret it just fine. So you'll be keeping your text link to my site for a while until I can finish checking it in every browser.

For starters, USE PARAGRAPHS! It makes your writing much less of a pain to read. For each complete thought, use a complete sentence, and when you're done following one line of thought, make a new paragraph. It's not just for your sake, but for ours, so we don't go mad trying to read the super-paragraph from hell. Starting on the use of music in Macross 7 to convey emotion, that wasn't the point. In Macross 7, music generates some pseudomystical force called anima spirita that the Protodevlin feed on, and that the Varuta don't have, so the spirita breaks them from their mind controlled-zombie state. It's all pseudospiritual BS, just Kawamori's take on "The Force" from Star Wars. I know the only thing I feel listening to Basara molest that guitar and microphone is irritation at Kawamori. Emotion to do with turning the Mardook against Ingues? Maybe. I suppose introducing a relatively brutal society to the concept of love might've been what started to turn them, it's certainly what turned Feff. But then again, the introduction of emotions evoked by music has always been a part of the culture shock weapon. The defection of the Mardook fleet was more likely prompted by Ingues's destruction of entire divisions of the fleet when their emulators refused to sing the song of war. When faced with a choice between an annihilation of their own making, and one of their master's making, all they needed was something to push them over the edge and give them the courage to do away with Ingues. Your last few sentences make no sense whatsoever the way they're worded. I'm guessing you mean that the new mecha designs were radical (ie Metal Siren, Zentradi Valkyrie, new destroids), and that the other mecha were updated versions of the original models from DYRL/SDF Macross. As to it's placement in the timeline, it was INTENDED to be a part of the timeline, and Kawamori removed it because it didn't fit with his idea for the Macross timeline, which involved Macross Plus (which he was working on when II was released) and Macross 7 (which absolutely sucks).

Yes, and the ladies too. Now now, we're here to chat about the aspects of Macross II, and while it might be fun to bash Kawamori for taking his revenge on the Macross community for having made a Macross series without him in the form of an annoying rock band, some sentai action hero look-alike Valkyries, and music that would make your teeth ache, it's not quite the point. Macross II is (thank god) a completely separate continuity from Macross 7 and Macross Plus, representing an alternate path of history and mecha development in which the UN takes a mecha developement path more in line with current fighter development (slow refinement, not drastic leaps) and has become somewhat reliant on facing the Zentradi down using music as a culture shock weapon as they'd done in the past, with no sort of magical, pseudospiritual BS attached.

Harmony Gold has neither the money, nor the ability to do any such thing. Right now, nearly all of what little money their company has left is sunk into their latest attempt to make an original Robotech sequel, something that's flopped what, three or four times now? Even if they had the money or influence to supress a re-release, they'd never manage it for long, because the demand is simply too high when compared to their own products. Harmony Gold has a wonderfully long history of talking a good game, and never being able to back their words up, and like Zinjo said, they tend to fold given the slightest pressure. Even if Manga did let their licence lapse, the most likely contenders for it in my mind would likely be Image, Geneon, and possibly ADV. Remastered Patlabor movie you say? I'm there.

Mainly, I'm running a website design and custom application development studio with some good friends of mine. It pays pretty well, but it's mostly designing websites for small businesses and doing repairs and maintenace for the few larger companies around. We also do pretty good business as makers of custom, high performance gaming computers, and doing computer repair, but those jobs are again, mostly for small businesses, and the occasional independent customer. So since the hours aren't long, I usually end up picking up a "hobby" to keep myself occupied. Recently I've done a bit of public relations work for a major American automaker in my free time. Also, once or twice a year I get called in by the local orchestra and their affiliate performing arts groups to either pull a shift as stage crew chief or as either a Bass Trombone, Baritone, or 2nd Trombone. It also happens that every so often I end up either substituting for, or helping a professor at the local university's computer science department teach a class or two. It's that last one that's generated all the papers to grade. The semester's ending in three days and I've got a massive backlog of programs to grade for a Java Obeject Oriented Programming class. What about you?

All right gents, that's quite enough, let's get back on topic.

Palladium Books has been inching closer to the abyss for ages now. It's just a matter of time before they take the final step and plunge right out of business. They keep churning out more of the same old thing, more Rifts products and periodically some additions to the fantasy line. Kevin Siembieda's unwillingness to explore the opportunities available with new titles and licences is killing Palladium just as surely as the theft and sabotage have. The Palladium RPG system needs a facelift badly, and he's too damn proud to do it. He doesn't want to abandon the system and games he's become comfortable with, so as a result Palladium has essentially become irrelevant to the entire industry. Even getting the Robotech RPG licence back won't save them at this point, since in all honesty, it's nothing new. Unless they offer something from the upcoming new Robotech series (Shadow Chronicles) in their new Robotech RPG, it won't have much appeal for anyone, even the die-hard Robotech fans. Maybe if he revamped the entire system, and included material from Shadow Chronicles, and if Shadow Chronicles REALLY takes off, then they might have a chance to stay in business. What they really need are about ten new titles, and a complete reevaluation of the entire Palladium game system. Of course, neither of those things are likely to ever happen. I think it's pretty likely that Harmony Gold will renew their licence to the Robotech RPG. Harmony Gold isn't big on doing anything new or original, and they tend to stick to what works for them, like using familiar characters, mecha and voices in even their newest works, and sticking to the same idea for a sequel no matter how many times it fails. (Shadow Chronicles is an extension of the failed concept for Robotech II: The Sentinels) So I don't think Harmony Gold will seriously even consider other comapnies unless Palladium out and out tells them that they're going under next tuesday. Mercifully both Palladium Books and Harmony Gold are so far out of touch with the demands of the fans, and the flow of the entire gaming industry that it's likely that very few people would even notice that either or both had gone out of business. If one or both died, other companies would pick up the licences that could turn make a decent profit, and let the others fall, and most of the world would be none the wiser. It's gotten so bad with Harmony Gold that people have to blast them with petitions and complaints in order to get products released, or even defective products replaced. I'm sure some of you know about the defective DVDs from the Southern Cross series, and the ongoing petition for merchendise from same. Mostly their administration turns a deaf ear to it. Palladium's a little wiser, and at least pretends to listen to the complaints.

Hmmm... pretty good. It's a little out of scale for a Mardook/Zentradi battleship, since those seem to top out around 4000m long excluding the mobile fortress belonging to Ingues. Still, that aside you've got a pretty good handle of the Mardook/Zentradi hull texture and overall look. The shape of the hull and the position of the tower on the rear remind me a little more of the pre-salvage SDF-1 than a Marduk ship, or maybe the flying bridge from the Mardook version of the Thuverl Salan class. All told, it's a good piece of work, well drawn and a good beginning from which you can flesh the design out more.

Glad you like it, I'll agree with you that there should've been more done with the big space battles, especially the one at the finale. They only show a fraction of the battle because the main character was a civilian, and they were more focused with showing his angle than the military's. Though there weren't 120 Macross Cannons at the last battle, they only mentioned the existance of six of them during the last battle. When it came up in the dialogue, Capt. Balzae asked "Why only four?" and his aide replied "two more are en route." Seeing more of the U.N. Spacy's own warships instead of the ones taken from the Zentradi would've been a nice touch to the space battles. Sure they modified the ships to launch newer Valkyries, and stenciled a UN logo on them, but the fighting is still done mostly by Zentradi-style ships. I would've liked to see more of the Gloria and Heracles class ships, and maybe even some more to do with the rescue carrier ship that picked up Silvie and Hibiki, and the gunships that make up the rank and file of the human ships. That's not entirely the case. Sure the marketing for additional models, toys, etc. practically writes itself when you add specialized models of mecha for main characters, but it's nothing unique to any mecha series. It's been practically a tradition as long as there's been giant robot anime to give the main characters their own specal model of mecha, or a special paint scheme to tell them apart from the rank and file expendable extras. Look at how Hikaru mysteriously got a VF-1J right off the bat, with a different color scheme, when the rest of the recruits flew brown VF-1A's. Or how Max and Milia got special color schemes. Or how in Full Metal Panic, Sousuke got the ARX-7. It's not so much for commercialism as it is for getting the main characters to stand out and be different from the expendable extras. Another of the interesting aspects that comes out that proves that Macross II isn't a DYRL carbon copy. You could compare the UN Spacy in Macross II to the Soviet military during the cold war, when the government exercised massive censorship of the press to save face, even when things weren't going well. And you had one borderline crazy reporter determined to get the truth out, which got him locked up, and likely nearly executed, very like Russia under Stalin. Then you had the very Hitler-esque Mardook, where disobedience is punished by death, and where the goal is to wipe out everything other than the "master race" as Ingues plans to wipe out every non-Mardook species. Thank you, I hope you'll enjoy my work as well.

Is it just me or did all the other threads in here vanish? I'm getting caught up on a grading backlog, then I'll be back into the website stuff.

I never said I was on a quest to correct everybody, I'm just working to provide the most complete set of information possible for the enjoyment of the fans of Macross II. The unavailability of good Macross II websites and information is a sticking point for a lot of fans that want to know more about the series, and providing accurate, canon information is tied into that as well. Sorry we got a little off topic. But you can only say so much about "I like Macross II because" before it gets really old, and talking more about the series in detail is definately helping keep the thread moving. So long as I'm here and Azrael's asking to get back on topic, I'll give this thread a kick more towards the spirit of the original post. I'd be interested to hear from all of you what your favorite mecha is from Macross II, and why. Personally I rather like the Gigamesh flown by Feff. Taken with the more conventional designs used by the UN and the Zentradi, the Mardook's one or two new types of mecha definately deserved more screen time than they got. Feff's personal Gigamesh just has such an utterly malevolent fell to it, from the obsidian-black faceplate with the glowing red eyes, to the fact that the thing is bristling with close combat weapons, like the extendable fingers, toes and wings, and the missile launchers hidden in the forearms. It's got a lot more of an organic feeling to it than the Nosjadeul Ger or Queadluun Rau. Can't say I care much for the generic head for it, which had that odd little beak, but the Feff variant was something that needed more screen time than it got. That aside, the revision to the Nosjadel Ger was nice for the Zentradi, gave it a more streamlined feeling, and made it look a little more organic and alien, and a little less mechanical. Same general mecha, just looks a little more like a blend between the original Queadluun Rau and Nosjadeul Ger models, with those large engines behind the shoulder joint, and the slightly less pronounced head.

Buddy, knowing Kevin and his writing style as well as I do, I can tell you right now that I have NEVER treated his RPG books as a canon source of information on the mecha, characters or anything else in Macross II. On multiple occasions I've sat down to have a chat with the good folks at Palladium Books about it, and to start to put right what they put wrong. It's not like they did it out of malice, or in some attempt to ruin Macross II, their goal was to provide a RPG that was within the constraints of the Macross II timeline and mecha, and be as close to canon as possible while still providing a game that was both enjoyable and fair. So I do think you may be judging them a little harshly. All told they did us all a minor service in those books by using selected art from the "THIS IS ANIMATION SPECIAL" on Macross II, making it much much easier to find. Here's a few examples of some of the things I've put right using the available canon materials, common sense, and a healthy dash of mathematics and some evidence from the animation: The size of the Heracles class carrier, as listed in his books, is 305m long. This blatantly contradicts obvious evidence in the anime itself, namely several shots of the Heracles class sitting in port next to a Zentradi carrier, a Quiltra Queleual class carrier, and two of the UN Spacy frigates, all of which are nearly the same size as the Quiltra Queleual. That puts their sizes respectively around 3000m long each. Calculating backwards from other visual evidence of known scale, including the size of mecha making suicide runs on them, gives me a similarly large answer. The size of the Macross Cannon, which is listed as a little under 500m contradicts all the visible evidence, including shots of it docked with a mobile fortress identical to that used by Bodolzaa during the original series, and the idea of it having four Nupetiet Vergnitz prows for guns. My calculations and estimates put it at being about 4800m long. So you see Skull Leader, I'm well aware Kevin's material isn't canon, and I know full well the huge number of problems he introduced. That's why I've made it my own little quest, so to speak, to correct what he's put wrong, and provide a more realistic estimate of the mecha, characters and weaponry based on the animation and more credible canon sources, including the "This is Animation Special" book on Macross II. The problem is that while I and most of you might know that his material isn't canon, and in many cases doesn't make sense (like saying the Macross Cannon can't fly in atmosphere and on the next page printing art of it flying through the clouds), there are a lot of people out there who haven't got all the evidence in front of them, and so end up using the Palladium Books RPG as their main resource, simply because it's easier to find and read than the "This is Animation Special" volume on Macross II. The art is still perfectly good, since it's mostly taken from the Animation Special book anyways, but it's the stats that are the sticky subject and lead to the majority of sites using the "Marduk" spelling.