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Seto Kaiba

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  1. Seto Kaiba
    Oh come on, Star Wars was already double dipping with May the 4th and Revenge of the 5th. It can't annex the whole bloody month.
  2. Seto Kaiba
    ... honestly, I can't think of any. Macross is pretty good about establishing that anyone who jumps/falls into a Valkyrie's cockpit with the intent to fly it has at least some relevant training. Thinking back to all the major Macross titles, I don't think we've ever had a totally unqualified person jump into the cockpit in the manner that so often happens in Gundam.
  3. Seto Kaiba
    Hondo Ohnaka, and it's not literal. More a habitual expression of exasperation (shared with the in-series characters). He's an incredibly flamboyant and theatrical pirate captain who debuted in Star Wars: the Clone Wars and managed to get on the wrong side of most of the major characters with his shenanigans. He was enough of a fan favorite that he got brought back for Star Wars: Rebels and is the host of the preshow at the Smuggler's Run ride at Disneyland's Galaxy's Edge. He's absolutely got the right level of flamboyant ham to consider a career as a talk show host.
  4. Seto Kaiba
  5. Seto Kaiba
    ... that is almost exactly what I pictured in my head. This would actually have felt a lot more natural than the hosts of Good Morning Coruscant who looked like they wandered onto the wrong set from a Hunger Games spinoff. With the Hutts reputation for being kind of sleazy (and in The Clone Wars, pretty hammy), they'd make ideal talk show hosts. Especially with their incination to big, booming laughter and their sluglike body profile that'd make them naturals at slouching over a host's desk. About the only Star Wars character who'd make a better talk show host would be f***ing Hondo... but he spends this same period hamming it up as an itinerant space pirate and bothering Hera Syndulla's rebel cell.
  6. Seto Kaiba
    Caught the latest episodes of The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl, Witch Watch, I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years, Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive, The Brilliant Healer's New Life, and The Too Perfect Saint. This season is painfully light on talent. No real standouts so far, just a lot of serviceable but unremarkable middle-of-the-road formula shows. The only series I'm really waiting for every week is The Apothecary Diaries. There are a few real stinkers, though. Classic Stars is so incoherent I still don't know what it's even about five episodes on. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is exactly as poorly thought out as its literal placeholder title implies. Yandere Dark Elf marketed itself like a romcom but it's basically softcore porn. Kinda disappointed... but my watch group is getting a lot of mileage out of The Apothecary Diaries and our rewatch of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in celebration of the announcement of Steel Ball Run. I might try to pick up one or two more simulcast titles to see if I'm missing anything good. Maybe The Beginning After The End, Kowloon Generic Romance, or Shoshimin.
  7. Seto Kaiba
    Seems that way, yeah... they've come up with a couple good excuses for why the tech isn't used more widely, a lot of which are some flavor of acknowledging that repeated use of LEGO Genetics in the real world would be a very unhealthy thing to do even if they weren't for the massive changes in biochemistry necessary to work around the square cube law. Admittedly, investigating this question led me to that very uncomfortable detail I hadn't been aware of before about Ernest Johnson's unusual proportions being a miclone system-induced deformity. If a few too many trips through the miclone system without perfectly system-compatible genes can leave you with permanent physical and genetic alterations, that's a good reason to only use it sparingly.
  8. Seto Kaiba
    That is an excellent question we do not currently have an answer for. We know there are some health conditions, principally genetic ones, which prevent a person from safely using a micloning system and we know that the miclone system can both remove and install biotechnological components of the body like the Meltran bio-fiber optic nervous system or a records officer's expanded memory. There's no word on whether micloning can work with cybernetics or even more minimal body mods like tattoos and piercings. Since giant Zentradi are prohibited on Earth and aren't present in most emigrant fleets or planets for resource reasons, this may be something of an academic question even in-universe. Supplemental material for Macross 7 indicates that Exsedol did spend time among Humans as a miclone toward the end of the First Space War as we saw in the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series. It's noted that, by the time of the Macross 7 fleet's departure, he had returned to his giant size and original body plan because he was concerned that his miclone form's smaller size might mean reduced memory and information analysis capability compared to his specialized giant form. Ernest Johnson is a half-Zentradi "peace child". Exactly what's going on with that metal on the back of his head is unclear, but it may be related to his unusual body proportions. Macross Delta Character Design Works has some notes that suggest Ernest's height and unusual proportions are not natural, but are instead the result of some quirk of his half-Zentradi genetics not playing nice with repeated use of micloning systems and leaving him slightly deformed with a Hellboy-like physique. It's possible that metal bit is reinforcing his skull due to those micloning-related health issues, or perhaps it's simply an affectation because he's bald? (For instance, TV Vrlitwhai's "eyepatch" wasn't an implant... it was basically just an outlandish eyepatch bolted directly to his skull to cover up an injury.) That's a good question, which we don't have an answer for. Perhaps it's too great of a strain on the body and mind for a severely injured person. Maybe the system really is THAT doggedly precise that it'll recreate injuries and scar tissue not just run off a copy of the body based on its DNA. Or maybe it's something to do with the genetic issues that prevent some people from using micloning systems safely that have been mentioned several times since Macross Frontier. Klan Klan, Michael Blanc, and Ernest Johnson are all mentioned to have (or be at risk for) issues caused by miclone systems.
  9. Seto Kaiba
    While I was thinking on this one I did a bit of research, and it turned out to be quite a rabbit hole when it comes to technologies for improving medical prosthetics. Col. Johnson's artificial leg is described as a "robotic prosthetic" limb rather than a cybernetic one. There's apparently a key distinction there in terms of how the prothesis is being controlled. Cybernetic prosthetics would be directly integrated into the nervous system and controlled like a biological limb. Robotic prosthetics, on the other hand, are indirectly monitoring motor nerves via EMG sensors, via magnets implanted in the muscles themselves, or using computer models to guess what the correct posture is instead of working like a biological limb. So it sounds like Millard's leg is not actually tied into his nervous system... which explains why that was a career-ending injury. It's enough to let him walk normally, but he likely doesn't have any feeling in that leg and limited-at-best control over the motions of the joints.
  10. Seto Kaiba
    Y'know, I'd always assumed that Millard Johnson's prosthetic leg in Macross Plus was a conventional prosthesis... but it appears you are correct. His Macross Chronicle Character Sheet explicitly refers to his artificial leg as a "robotic prosthetic".
  11. Seto Kaiba
    It's more or less the same as your hypothesis... just slightly narrower in scope since the New UN Gov't initially apparently didn't consider more civil war a possibility.
  12. Seto Kaiba
    Yep... that and other fodder for licensed spinoff comics and short story collections where the Glup Shittos of the Galaxy Far Far Away get their time to shine like the polished turds they are. (NGL, a late night talk show starring a Hutt is a weird mental image I kind of actually want to see tho. I have this bizarre mental image of a Hutt squeezing itself into a suit and tie doing a Stephen Colbert-style late show.) It's a noodle incident at best. They were off on some nonspecific mission and someone saw their faces on the way out so Cassian removed the witness. Could've been a literal milk run anywhere there are wanted posters of them up.
  13. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Chronicle's Technology "Macross Galaxy Fleet Technology" (a Macross Frontier movie one) suggests the New UN Gov't was worried the Zentradi might use cyborg tech to become more of a threat if development wasn't carefully supervised and restricted. Basically, the didn't want Zentradi cyborg supersoldiers in the next Zentradi riot.
  14. Seto Kaiba
    Macross Frontier and later works use the term "implant" as a generic/catch-all term for any kind of cybernetic implant. Both the series proper and supplemental material indicate that there are laws governing the use of implant technology both at the local government level and the central New UN Government level. The New UN Government imposed strict regulations and restrictions on cybernetics research after the First Space War in order to keep humanity's cybernetics research focused on humane and ethically-sound medical applications and outlaw research aimed at weaponizing cyborgs. The kind of implants that are legal everywhere (incl. Frontier) are medically-necessary organ and limb replacements. The kind of thing used to repair catastrophic injuries like the loss of a limb or an eye. The few examples we've seen suggest that these implants don't exceed the performance of the original human body parts they replaced and look visibly artificial. (Macross R's Oscar Brauhitsch has a cybernetic arm, which looks more like Ed's automail arm from Fullmetal Alchemist than a convincing counterfeit human arm.) The restrictions on elective implants seem to have been relaxed a little c. the late 2040s, since that's when we see the Macross Galaxy fleet change its local laws to explicitly permit elective implant surgery for things like "the internet in your brain" multimedia/network implants. We've seen a few wealthy and well-connected folks living elsewhere also have those implants, so presumably they were legalized in other places as well after restrictions were relaxed. Frontier's ban on all but medically necessary implants is supposedly driven mainly by the fleet's bioplant environment system which recycles all organic material. Implants aren't biodegradable/recyclable after all, and would have to be manually removed from the body before processing could take place. Summing up... Frontier, Uroboros, etc. are probably far more representative of the galactic norm on cybernetics. You might get a couple rich idiots who paid a fortune to get their brains hooked up to the WiFi, but most people are in factory condition.
  15. Seto Kaiba
    Hmm... I can see it, in a way. We are seeing "the highlights" in a sense, but it's because we're seeing the periods of time when Things Are Happening and skipping the time inbetween where people are laying low after an op, gathering intel for the next one, and generally doing all the unexciting groundwork to set the stage for their faction's next move. We're seeing the few important days of Cassian's life that happened in that year, and skipping the ~11 months afterwards where nothing much was going on.
  16. Seto Kaiba
    Nothing clownish about it... it just has a hero mecha paintjob.
  17. Seto Kaiba
    They kept the original blue-white coloration that was chosen back in the days when Gundam's animation was hand-drawn. It was chosen because a pure white makes it harder to draw light effects. 'course, the whole "White Gundam" thing goes back to the original series where the Gundam was called the "White Guy" or "White Devil" by Zeon for its white paintjob... and Tomino's desire to have the whole thing just be flat white before getting overruled by marketing.
  18. Seto Kaiba
    This is the early days of the Rebellion, after all. The Rebel Alliance hasn't been founded yet at this point in the timeline. Luthen et. al. are maintaining and supporting a network of independent rebel groups as best they can, but each group is still a separate entity with its own chain of command and its own agenda and priorities. There's no central command. No official training regimen. Each rebel cell has to make do with the volunteers they can find and whatever teachable skills they bring with them. For every elite rebel group like Luthen's, Hera's, or Saw's that has had actual military training, prior combat experience, significant technical skills, and/or the benefit of plot haxx like Jedi and Mandalorians, there are dozens like the Ghorman Front or Maya Pei Brigade that are made up of normal people whose only real qualifications are being angry enough with the Empire to pick up a blaster and shoot someone over it. The ones with good leadership, discipline, planning, and luck will last long enough to gain experience and grow more effective as insurgents. The ones who don't... well... you've seen what happened to the Maya Pei Brigade. That's why Mon Mothma's call for a Rebel Alliance is such a game-changer. Consolidating the individual rebel movements into a single cohesive organization allowed the rebels with critical skills and experience to train the inexperienced civilian volunteers into effective spies and soldiers for their war with the Empire.
  19. Seto Kaiba
    That's the same color scheme those two units have had for 40+ years now... and basically every main Gundam has the color scheme on the left.
  20. Seto Kaiba
    My watch group finished up the new batch of Andor episodes last night. I'm pretty satisfied with the story thus far. They didn't... the Ghorman Massacre hasn't happened yet. Apparently, as something of an olive branch to the Legacy fans, they decided to keep the pre-Disney version as a separate but less-severe event as a way of establishing the rising tensions on Ghorman. The series'll be headed back to Ghorman in future episodes, since the massacre is a pivotal event that directly gives rise to the Rebel Alliance. Yeah, Saw is... a unique personality. He was never the most stable person in the galaxy. When we first see him in The Clone Wars about 17 in-universe years before these Andor episodes, he was already a bitter and violent man fighting in a guerilla resistance movement against the Separatist occupation of his homeworld Onderon. Then the Republic sent Jedi and clones to train the Onderon resistance, which only made them better at guerilla warfare. He became even more unstable when his sister was killed fighting the Separatist droid army... and it's basically been all downhill from there. 20 years of nonstop guerilla warfare against the Separatists, and then the Empire, with the accompanying stress and paranoia has not done great things for his mental state and he's going to get even worse in the next few years until he dies on Jedha in Rogue One. It's not surprising Luthen is still willing to work with him, since Saw's partisans are basically the oldest and most experienced rebel faction out there and the ones with the fewest qualms about their goal of burning the Empire down. Once Mon Mothma forms the Rebel Alliance, his lot refuse to join because most rebels think he goes too far and Saw thinks every other rebel group doesn't go too far enough.
  21. Seto Kaiba
    Maybe, but there's been no indication of that thus far. Based on the last episode, it sounds like the One Year War didn't so much end as go on indefinite hiatus because neither side was able to gain a definitive advantage. Zeon "won" because the technological advantage they gained from the successful capture of the Pegasus and Gundam was just enough to offset the Federation's superior logistics and vast manpower advantage long enough for both sides to give up. Side 6 seems to be developing its own weapons despite being neutral, there are hints of a Zeon civil war, and there's maybe-rogue-maybe-not Federation pilots trying to destroy the Red Gundam. It seems like a cold war that's about to go hot again. Thus far, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that defense contractors are running Clan Battles for secret testing. All the machines we've seen or heard them mention are old ones from the war. Most competitors are using Zaku IIs. One team is apparently using Doms. That Side 6 PMC that let the Witch and another Federation pilot swap in fielded its Gelgoogs instead of Guncannons, but they're still OYW machines. The only categorically NEW hardware in play thus far is the GQuuuuuuX and that's technically stolen. With the tension that high, I'd imagine neither the Federation or Zeon would want to tip their hand so readily.
  22. Seto Kaiba
    I'd assume that, as in the real UC, Mobile Suits in this bad future alternate UC were developed as weapons from the start rather than as construction equipment. (It's only in the Gundam AUs that Mobile Suits were developed as nonmilitary hardware first.) Given that MS's like the Zaku are still military hardware even in alternate UC 0085, it seems unlikely that they would be in civilian hands as industrial machinery... and they're also be astonishingly expensive, making it unlikely a civilian construction firm would risk totaling one (or more) on illegal underground fights. The idea that a handful of broke refugees are able to acquire, repair, maintain, and arm something like a Zaku is pretty silly on its own. It's even worse with Shuji and the Red Gundam, since he's seemingly doing it all himself in a cramped airlock space that the Gundam doesn't even fit in. Just Anno's usual sloppy writing. Well... yeah? That's what it is. The Beginnings pamphlet from the movie suggests that Zeon cancelled the original MS-14 Gelgoog program after Char captured the RX-78 Gundam. It seems that Zeonic simply reused the cancelled program's name for their mass produced Gundam they reverse-engineered from the RX-78, making the Gelgoog literally a Zeon GM.
  23. Seto Kaiba
    The main problem with the Clan Battles is that they don't make sense in the context of the setting the way Duels in The Witch from Mercury do. G-Witch's Duels were mock battles with detuned weapons held as a way for the Benerit Group's various defense companies to demonstrate their latest products in combat and benchmark their rivals latest developments. Junking a few MS's in a student pissing match or for sport is small potatoes for companies who control the economy of the entire solar system. GQuuuuuuX's Clan Battles... well... the Pomaranians and some other clans are refugees living in illegal tenaments in Side 6, who nevertheless somehow have the kind of money necessary to buy the equivalent of a fighter jet on the black market and keep it fully fueled, armed, and operational. It's an illegal sport, and even with the illegal gambling on the events it doesn't quite make sense how civilian randos can manage that. The lack of a story hook is perhaps its biggest weakness. It's leaning real hard on its "What if?" storyline, but that's not enough to make it interesting.
  24. Seto Kaiba
    Once Upon a Witch's Death and Catch Me at The Ballpark are pretty unremarkable again this week. The Apothecary Diaries is heating up, though, so there's that.
  25. Seto Kaiba
    Another Tuesday, another painfully mediocre episode of GQuuuuuuX. It looks like we're going to be seeing a fair amount of recycled no-background zooming and twirling from the titular Gundam going forward. We get to see a very quick Clan Battle with recycled footage, and then people protesting against the Sodon's presence in Side 6. There's a second clan battle against a team sponsored by a PMC that normally uses Federation MS's. It's still pretty dull stuff. The Federation ace is a one-trick pony who lasts a couple minutes but never manages to land a real hit on either Gundam... Like a Newtype ghost, it's all flash and no substance.
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