wakusei

Alexi Kurakin

Fortunately for humanity, the leader of the VF-4 project, Alexi Kurakin, miraculously survived the interstellar war. Kurakin was the man who led the VF-4 project from start to finish, but he had once been a member of the ASS-1 survey team and later developed the SV-51 variable fighter under the Anti-Unification Alliance. However, he had been simply working under the powers in control of his motherland and not out of any political ideology.

The SV-51 was considered to possess performance equivalent to the VF-0 or better in certain conditions and greatly impacted development of the VF-1. After making the SV-51, he defected to the UN government. Under the United Nations military prior to Space War 1, Kurakin worked as a civilian engineer in the VF-1’s development, after which he became a contracted employee of Stonewell Belcom, where he suddenly was left in charge of the VF-4 project. This was of course because they recognized his ability in the creation of the SV-51 which had rivaled the VF-0 in performance.

A development division and factory for the VF-4 project were built on South Ataria, and when a section and work space were set up inside the SDF-1 Macross, Kurakin assigned his deputy chief, who could be called his right hand, to lead the section while he would work on the island. The section chief was Oleg Fedorov, who traveled with the SDF-1 in its so-called journey back to Earth.

On the day of the SDF-1 Macross’ launching ceremony and the attack on South Ataria by Britai’s fleet, Federov witnessed the activation of the SDF-1’s booby trap while attending the ceremony and immediately went to inspect his section in the ship. The SDF-1 then executed a space fold, and Federov and the other engineers who escaped no longer had the luxury to carry out their research and were tasked with maintenance, repair, and upgrading of the VF-1 squadrons. The valuable findings they gained from handling actual combat aircraft proved to be invaluable in later upgrades to the VF-1 and tactical analysis and would be passed on to the VF-4 project, needless to say.

On the day the SDF-1 folded out, Kurakin, also at the ceremony, avoided catastrophe by boarding a transport plane or helicopter escaping from the island. He was taken in by a nearby UN Navy carrier and changed his base of operations to work on the VF-4 project. He was based at the Grand Cannon in Alaska but luckily for him he was moved to the Apollo base with a test model right before the battle against the Bodol main fleet. Having survived Space War 1, he was directly commissioned by the UN Spacy to continue work on the VF-4 project. This was because the competing VF-3 Project was lost along with its staff due to the attack by the Bodol main fleet, and the survivors of the original VF-1 development team had their hands full with improving the VF-1. Federov also joined his project.

Through part of the development of the VF-4 series, Kurakin sought to achieve an airframe that surpassed the VF-1 in aerial maneuverability. To do that he even thought that transformation was unnecessary, but it wasn’t that he dismissed the idea. As evidence to that, for all models he made prototypes that could transform. He had later said, “The VF’s transformation is like a sudden mutation in the genes of an organism and if used in the right manner it could break stalemates or snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. I hoped it would serve as a catalyst in extend the conscious of a pilot." Kurakin himself had developed the SV-51 before the interstellar war and could not have anticipated the full scope of the transforming ability of the VF. He hoped that the added functionality to the fighter aircraft would create something that surpassed the expectations of its designers, and that it would be created by pilots placed in extreme situations. The fact of the matter is that there had been numerous reports of dramatic comebacks in situations where transformation was used by some skilled VF-1 pilots, and it was by reflecting those lessons learned in combat to the whole that the VF gained superiority over all else as a tactical weapon used by individuals. This is ultimately due to such possibilities and versatility being incorporated since the birth of the VF, but Kurakin’s genius was that he had implemented these uncertain factors while presenting a convincing and concrete argument to get permission for development from the military.

However there was a reason why even Kurakin had to give up on adding the transforming mechanism to the VF-4. The transforming mechanism of the VF-4 was excluded due to constraints that prevented sufficient enough time to be allocated to R&D and also because he was in agreement with the UN Spacy, which desired a fighter that would be easier to achieve flying qualifications for than the transformable VF-1 in order to get as many pilots into combat as possible. As a result, the VF-4 in all of its variations came to have specs surpassing the VF-1 and had the high evaluation of surpassing the VF-1 in operating rates and maintainability. After development of the VF-4, Kurakin did not join Shinsei Industries but created General Galaxy, and though the number of models that did end up being mass produced were few, he did create many excellent variable fighters.

Kurakin foresaw that with humanity’s sudden emergence into galactic space, it would be fighting against humanity that would escalate more than that against Zentradi. The main weapon in a war of humans versus humans would be the VF. Kurakin set up the SV design division as a special development team in General Galaxy. The SV design division worked on designs of “anti-VF VFs,” and there is talk of prototyping and limited run production, but this is of course top secret and the facts of it are unknown. There are also rumors of field testing on colony planets such those on the frontier.

As these aircraft constantly possessed maneuverability surpassing the mainstream fighters of the UN Spacy at all times, they were called VF-killers. It is also said that the SV in SV development division is Slayer of VF or Slayer of Valkyrie.

If the VFs made by Shinsei Industry are the yang, then the VFs made by General Galaxy as their yang counterparts could be said to have made great contributions to improving each other’s and all of the galaxy’s VF technology. Kurakin died in 2036, but up until then he personally led the development of a new fighter (what became the VF-9 Cutlass). And even now General Galaxy is continuing to produce VF-Killers.