tout-puissant

At this point I'd lay odds on the main cannon(s) being in the booms, but with each boom housing its own cannon in a sort of steeping stone to the more self-contained weapon versus the tuning fork configuration. If Elysion is indeed a precursor to Quarter, having some visual nods to the older SDF style designs would b really cool...

We don't really have any clues as to the age of the Elysion, though we see in a couple places that the paint is worn on the Aether's flight deck when Hayate is dangling his legs off of it in one episode. That's tough to judge though, since most real-world naval vessels and even planes have to repaint all the time to deal with corrosion from atmosphere or water.

Mark

Mark

Hey, Elysion is the Macross version of Zeta Gundam's Dogosse Giar!

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Dogosse_Giar-class

The ship mode is better than Quarter, but only just - and I'm a fan of the latter. The split prow is what makes the difference, IMO. With the twin booms sticking up front and not really connected on Quarter, the ship really was just a crouching version of the robot mode. Same thing on Elysion, but they've got the legs folding up more compactly and the shoulders also closer to the centreline, which improves the spaceship model silhouette tremendously. I didn't *hate* the Quarter design, it just felt unfinished in many ways.

However, there are still things carried over from Quarter that stick out (literally). The vertical towers above Elysion's head in robot mode simply flip backwards when transformed, just as on Quarter; and the head unit doesn't shift around at all either. Not BAD choices, but it doesn't do as much to hide the humanoid form.I do wonder what this means for any potential Macross cannon on this ship. There really OUGHT to be one, but where?

And re: the bridge, we've seen it several times now, deliberately not in full view - as on Frontier, we'll likely have to wait until Elysion actually takes off for us to see the set piece in all its glory. In any case, it seems to be a larger version of the Quarter bridge, with both aft bunny stations off to one side, but on two levels with the forward bunny stations and a larger chair for Captain Johnson isolated a couple steps down from the other stations. It'll be worth the wait to see, I'm sure.

Mark

Loved the episode. The VF-31 feels more rounded compared to the Messiah, visually as well as dramatically. The '25 always just seemed to be just *there* with no other purpose than to be the latest plane. Here I think we get the impression that the Seigfried is customized specifically for what our heroes are meant to be doing, which endears it to us in the audience.

And who is Lady M? Assuming they're teasing an existing Macross character, I agree that Mylene would be the best choice. She'd be 36 and still smokin' hot, if her mom's genes have anything to say about it, plus thematically she has a rational stake in operating a Sound Force esque team to save the galaxy. Second up would be Miria (who in her late 60s would ALSO still be smokin' hot, I'm sure) or slightly more likely one of her kids. Thematically I think it would be great to explore the notion that Mirage is there because of her family ties over being a genuine Jenius, as if THAT weren't pressure enough.

But who else could it be? Not likely Myung, she'd be the sort of producer to pull this sort of thing off but I doubt they'd mine Macross Plus for any sort of storyline, despite it including things like song-induced mind control. Minmei? Naw, SK has pretty consistently said that her story is over (thus likely precluding Misa as well). And of course Mao has apparently left our mortal coil behind.

Of course, this whole thing could be SK's latest red herring and it's a completely new character who gets introduced Green Ranger style to kick butt halfway through the series. Or, we just see a one-second scene as at the end of Frontier where it's revealed that the WHOLE THING was orchestrated by one zealous otaku.

Mark

That's too many extra details that would need to be explained though.

Occam's Razor would lead us to the simplest explanation, that it is likely Macross 1.

I can respect that viewpoint and disagree with it at the same time. I'm the type to take visual evidence over one mention in a book written long before Frontier or Delta came out, and try to rationalize it rather than dismiss it as an animation error / inconsistency (so yes, I think the erronious VF-1 with three head lasers in the original SDF Macross IS a thing, despite NO literature backing it up). IMO, Macross 1 is absolutely a possibility but far from a firm yes. We can discuss this for hours without a firm conclusion either way - that's what makes us nerds for this thing, after all!

Mark

Just a side note, the Macross-1 fleet is the only one noted as not having the shell.

Granted, if it's written somewhere it's likely to have been the intent at the time. But who knows for sure, it's not the first time something in print was later contradicted by visual evidence - or as noted above, the shell could have been jettisoned or lost along the way. Since we don't see an NMC for sure, and since the City ship here looks both different and smaller than the ones in the picture I linked, I think that it could easily NOT be Macross 1, as much as I'd love to have that consistency maintained.

Mark

That little blob of a ship is not likely anything special.

And while the evidence suggests that Ragna could have been initially settled by the Macross 1 fleet (or perhaps just a part of it, since the the one shot in the Macross 7 intro segment shows FOUR Battle/City ship combos of two distinct designs), there's enough leeway to interpret it as any of the other early NMC fleets. We don't know for sure when they started building CIty ships with the clamshells, or if EVERY ship after Macross 5 (at the earliest) had them; so it could concievably be anyone from Macross 1-4 within reason.

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macross7/newmacross/newmacross1.jpg

Now, why would two ships potentially launched years apart end up within a few hundred light years of each other at roughly the same time? That's not THAT much of a stretch... Macross 5 and 7 were in the same neck of the woods after all, and then Frontier and Galaxy ended up together as well. In both cases they were separated by two fleet designations and at LEAST a couple years between launches.

Coming back to Ragna and Windermere, they could have launched years apart but their courses and the length of their stopovers would bring them together at about the same time. Alternatively, the Megaroad could have passed Ragna, seen the native population as nice and friendly, and marked it for a visit by the next available colony while they moved on to Windermere which was better suited to their tastes (or something). A next fleet to launch from Earth / Eden figured on cutting out the "wandering space for decades" thing and booted it straight for Ragna.

Mark

The older Windemere fighters are a cross between the SV-51 from Macross Zero and the real-life F-104 Starfighter. Can't really see if they're transformable, but the way it's animated suggests it's a CG model - and if so, if it's transformable that's already built-in. Given the plot showing a LOT of stuff originating seven years ago when these ships were flying, I'm guessing we'll see these things in action via flashback at some point - and if so, we'll also see whatever NUNS was flying against them. Probably the ubiquitous VF-171, but who knows - the VF-25 is TECHNICALLY available...

There's been some discussion on the episode thread about WHAT ships did the colonization forty years ago, which is also technical discussion. Obviously a Megaroad-class ship made contact with Windermere, which if it happened in the late 2020s means they'd probably run out of repurposed Zentradi ships to act as the escort fleet by that point... The escorts were not quite discernable, but one of them looked to be the model seen later over Vordor, itself perhaps a variant on the "Macross Galaxy refugee ship" from Frontier (with an asymmetrical forward end, perhaps even based on Quarter?). Speaking of which, the smaller ships are definitely based on the Deneb-class ships from the same fleet, though are not identical. One wonders who makes these things?

As for the fleet that landed on Ragna (did they just shore up like that, all at once? No one analyzes a planet for months from orbit, determining a good place to land an advance party to make first contact? How un-Trekkish..), the island/city ship that landed is the one we see in the central city in the present day. We can't really tell if the ship that's attached to the front is a New Macross class carrier or whatever Elysion is, but the escorts are the stock models for the Northampton / Uraga / Stealth Cruiser we've already seen, suggesting the latter is an older design that simply wasn't seen in Macross Plus / 7 for whatever reason. The City ship itself seems never to have had a clamshell, suggesting it was an earlier design, but still not NECESSARILY a New Macross class ship.

Oh, and on the Aether, we see that the darkened room they were using in the first episode is their briefing room, though who knows if they have several identical rooms like it on the carrier ships and the Elysion herself. Comfy enough place, though. Got plants and everything.

Mark

The addition of CG basically canned the M+ / M7 looks. The CG models don't "lie" as easily as hand-drawn perspectives and so to be consistent the Battroid modes of various Valkyries suddenly got a LOT skinnier to match the sleek fighter modes. Still, there's room for some innovation, mostly around where to put the extra bits and bobs that aren't the main limbs. Putting the carnards on the shoulders on the VF-30/31s was a nice touch, and the Sv-262 transverse limb arrangement allows some bigger / evil-er shoulders to be squished in there, for example.

I like the VF-171. It's bascally the VF-11 of the current generation, the trusty workhorse that's been around in at least two series. Chronologically speaking, the VF-17 series has been around longer than bascially ANY of the main characters have been alive (first flight was 2035, making senior pilot Arad one year old at the time). It's been the ubiquitous UNS/NUNS fighter for two decades, too. No surprise any amateur pilot can feel they can just jump into one and save the day.

Mark

PS - Ranka Beach. Ha!

Lil Draken. Named after the this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_210

Hah! Whaddya know. SK being playful.

Mark

I thought I saw very finger-looking things in a view of it in Ep 3, will try to find it.

It's in the OP, you can see the what looks like Elysion's right hand in a sort of karate chop pose with the not-Aether ship partially covering it. Not sure if that's deliberate or not, you can't see any fingers in a similar shot of the Aether departing, in this week's episode.

Mark

NEW images of G/B-Mode of the SV-262 have been added to macross.jp's Mechanical page.

http://macross.jp/delta/mechanic/

The new images have a caption underneath... I can only read the katakana, but it seems to indicate that the drones might be called "Lear Draken" (Ri-ru Do-ra-ke-n). "Ri-ru" can be interpreted as "Real" or "Leeloo" as well (especially if SK liked "The Fifth Element" movie), so I could be wrong. The same caption mentions the leg-mounted missle pods, which suggests that "Lear Draken" is referring to the drones.

Can anyone with a better command of kanji offer some more clues?

Mark

The gunship had already been taken out by Battle Galaxy's own cannon attack. They pretty much HAD to do what they did with the ARMD-L!

Mark

Come to think of it, on Quarter the arms and the two doohickeys aft of the main superstructure were ALL supposed to be capable of independent flight - the two smaller ones were called "BASTER-L" and "BASTER-R" (Buster?), and were independent "battery warships", whatever that means. They were never seen actually doing anything except flip over as the Quarter transformed.

Elysion has equivalent limbs, so perhaps the two tower structures have a similar purpose. They look about the same as it is, being somewhere between the SDF-1 Macross design and that of Quarter.

I'd love to see a DX of Elysion. Mind you, I'm still waiting for the New Macross class, but...

Mark

True enough. But just imagine the awesomeness.

Re: The CF VF-171s, I'm sure they were from the local garrison. Among things, their markings and pilot suits featured the usual NUNS logos.

Come to think of it, if Ragna has ONLY the Elysion as its garrison ship, it's rather less well defended than some planets. Ah-Shahal had a fair-size fleet in orbit, including the trusty Northampton, Guantanamo and Uraga class ships, plus the Stealth carriers first seen in Frontier. This may add up to several hundred fighters. Is Ragna so backwater that they don't need it? Or is the Chaos gang all they figure they need? Presumably the human settlement was established when Elysion or some other ship landed with that (still looks smaller than City 7) dome in tow. Were they on their lonesome, or did that fleet get reassigned and had the Elysion plopped in place as a permanent guardian? Interesting speculation to be sure.

Mark

I've been in civil props, so I can imagine an order of magnitude worse than that.

However, ever since the very first Macross they've never had ANY problem hearing or speaking with anyone, be it on the comm or to anyone else in the cockpit (even if it was open to the outside while moving!). I've always figured it was some sort of over-technology sound insulation that canceled noise and amplified speech in a way we couldn't possibly conceive. At least Macross Zero seemed to show that the pre-Macross tech F-14s still had people putting their masks on to talk with anyone.

Mark

Maybe, maybe not. Sheryl wore a suit in the first episode of Frontier, but later she seemed to not be wearing one when she got changed between songs even though that concert was basically a repeat of the first. In later usages for costume changes (notably in the Frontier finale), both Sheryl and Ranka seemed to change without putting any sort of suit on; however it could just have easily been projected onto them by their respective stages aboard Quarter and Battle Frontier.

In the movies, both of them performed with the same glowey sort of effect that we see Walkure have here when they're on stage; so it could be similar technology. Still, the glow may indicate their suits' built in fold receptor tech working, since at points in this week's episode some of them are not glowing while their outfits are still there.

I think the evidence points to the use of multiple technologies for holography and probably PPB projection, whether it be in whatever they're wearing, on the stage, or even from the fighters. I'm willing to be that Kawamori and co. have a general idea of what's making it all work, but like everything else in these shows we're expected to sit back, enjoy what we're seeing, and trust in the notion that something indistinguishable from magic is at work here.

I agree it's getting close to my personal limit for suspension for disbelief, but my wife and I watch this show in the same session as Sailor Moon Crystal, so we're not too far from accepting more of the same.

Mark

On helmets...

It's not like a pilot really NEEDS one, given the inertial dampening qualities of most Valkyries (Hikaru did it in a couple instances of Macross, and Basara went bascially his whole series without one). It follows that in a modern VF-31, if anything hit him with enough force to overpower whatever the inertial dampeners can handle, he'd end up as chunky salsa on the inside of the cockpit no matter what. The Knights seem to do without them as well, unless they're just holographed out as what seems to be the case Walkure's outfits.

Still, they make a big deal of modifying Hayate's plane so he can fly without one. In practice, he doesn't need one for HUD properties either since they seem perfectly okay with free-floating displays anywhere they're actually needed, plus the ones one the actual screens in front of him. But what happens when he wants to do the Zero/Frontier googly-eye missile lock-on? Deploy the Ex-Gear?

On the ships...

Yeah, it's written ELYSION on the back of its bridge in big red letters. No missing out that this is the intended spelling at this point.

Cool name for the carrier. I'm willing to bet the other carrier carries the Elysion's complement of CF fighters... The ship seems to be the sole vessel of Ragna's garrison (that we know of), and if it is, thus it makes sense it doesn't go anywhere until the fight comes to them, sending off these cool carrier arms to do the mission at hand.

On that, the Aether seems to transform for space / interstellar operations, which I *suppose* may make sense in certain scenarios when there's no gravity. Looking at screencaps, the carrier deck splits into three and the outboard sponsons angle down. This reveals additional bays from which fighters can launch along the catapult rails instead of the upper deck - which may still be able to launch craft? It does make a certain amount of sense.

But we really haven't seen the bridge of the Aether, have we? Some of the gang were monitoring things from a darkened room in the first episode, which may have had consoles in the background in addition to some desk space for Kaname's laptop. That might be the bridge...

And hey, anyone notice that the Aether appears to move through fold space without the characteristic "afterimage" effects seen in other Macross series? Frontier seems to have largely ignored them except in the first episode, but most of the rest had them. Omission, or advancing technology?

On Walkure's outfits...

So is there a consensus on how these things work? Extrapolating from what Sheryl was wearing in the first episode of Frontier, I'd always figured that they were wearing some sort of skin-tight suit which includes (in Delta) some kind of advanced holography to make it appear that they're wearing whatever costume they want. In episode 1, Reina is wearing a full-on spacesuit, helmet included. Where does that go when she pops into her performance gear? I'd like to think that they could be wearing them the whole time - sending them out into an open combat zone without head protection really seems silly.

The girls' normal performance outfit includes a sort of hip-mounted crinoline visible on all their outfits (with variations) which contains the jet thrusters we've seen them use even when they swap to the outfits they use in Episode 4. We may never see these suits when they're "off", but I hope they address this in some fashion since they spend a whole lot of time on the mechanics of the rest of the universe... It seems that they haven't quite reached the level of magical matter synthesis like on Star Trek, but they might be getting close. Is this the Macross franchise's take on tactile and haptic feedback? Perhaps the suit has some PPB field that can imitate the fabric and hair to a certain extent?

Mark

Having been enslaved by Neko Atsume for much of the past year, I've started naming these mercats. The one that shows up at Ragnyannyan is Tubbs, obviously.

Mark

We still haven't gotten a very good look at the bridge of the Elysium. Until we do, we're only given a few hints at what the interior looks like from when we see Arad, Chuck, Earnest and the bridge bunnies during the dogfight in Episode 3. From the looks of it, it's largely Quarter-esque in layout, albeit with the bunny stations being elevated on a rear deck above the level where he two classic forward stations sit (unmanned in this episode), plus Earnest in his oversized chair. I suspect they had this layout so the captain isn't always looking down on his officers.

Interestingly, the "Vanessa" bunny station off to the side (with the big dedicated holographic monitors) has a sort of warning or danger signage on the floor around it. Does it move around or something? Is that particular bunny off limits to everyone else? Hopefully we'll learn this secret. The aft stations seem nothing special, altough they are side by side a la Quarter, instead of being separated by the entry hatch as on the SDF-1. Admittedly it makes the inevitable gossip scenes easier.

Mark

Heh, I'm not sure that a lot of people who aren't into the rap scene would know this. I certainly don't.

That said, I'm selfishly enjoying the fact that my daughter and I can easily do the thing, while my wife is struggling to cross her fingers like the girls. Makes watching the show a little more fun.

Mark <--- heading for the doghouse, I know

Regarding Alto, his school had a VF-1 perched as a gate guard, so who knows - maybe he simmed in various publicly-available craft, including civilian versions of older fighters (which for all we know could go all the way up to the VF-19P). The Ex-Gear would take care of the rest - and the notion that he was skilled in the Gear in the first place suggests that the Ex-Gear was meant to instill commonality in variable fighter control. Yes, still a stretch, but not an inconceivable one by anime standards.

And now we have Hayate, who can jump into a VF-171 and dance around the notion (pun intended) that just anyone can fly a military craft. OTOH, by 2067 the variants of the VF-17 family will have been around for over 30 years, more than almost any of our characters will have been alive in Delta OR Frontier. It may be that the VF-171 is such a baseline fighter that anyone can go to the arcade, or download a game to your phone with a realistic depiction of how the systems work. In Hayate's case, his workroid training and natural skill would fill in the rest, at least for the -171 as a battroid. The minute he switched the thing over to fighter (and somehow kept the arm from folding in and crushing Freyja) he was almost certainly at his limit.

Mark

The Macross Quarter transformation was really just half-squatting and sticking the arms and legs out. Bascially the same thing as Battle 7 / Frontier / Galaxy but with less parts actually touching each other. If the Elysium ends up being a scaled-up Quarter in design, I'd expect it to have the same transformation as well - the limbs in the screenshots do not look like they come together in any meaningful way.

But who knows? For all we know, Elysium could be an OLDER design and the Quarter is in fact a scaled DOWN version of it! No one's really blinked at its size or design, and Quarter made Alto jump because it was small and yet packed such a punch. Not that it makes much of a difference, all Macross ships have kicked ass in each of their respective series...

Mark

Re; Elysium, my bet is that it's a slightly enlarged variant of the Quarter. Quarter stands about 300m tall, which as has been noted is around the height of a 90-story building. I can buy that from the screenshots provided and can dismiss the rest as cosmetic differences. If anything, consider it the same sort of differences between the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and the forthcoming Gerald R. Ford class. The latter is a teeny big bigger and the tower is completely different in configuration and placement, but otherwise they share the same basic shape.

And regarding that city dome in the lake, note that while it's definitely not the scale as Island One, it seems to be much smaller than City 7 as well. It's got skyscrapers poking through the dome and all, but compared to the Manhattan-esque metropolis skyline that comprised most of City 7, and what was basically the entire City of San Francisco in Island 1, this one seems to be a much smaller city with some Zentradi-scale trees around it. Maybe half the size of City 7? Round about what the ol' Megaroad class would be hauling inside? Something that Elysium could dock with?

We don't even know how long Barette City here has been in existence. Could be a relatively new construction, or it could be decades old - it's impossible to really tell given how fast construction happens in the Macross universe. The locals, assuming they invited / allowed the colony to settle there, have certainly wasted no time integrating the culture. That Chaos is using Ragna as a base of operations for its state of the art planes and tech is indicative that this is no backwater planet.

Tech-wise, this is a delicious world-building episode and I'm loving it.

Mark