Aries Turner

Thanks!

While still unconvinced about VT-1 and VE-1 being available before Space War, I'll byte the bullet for the fan fiction I am working about. VFMF may not be canon today, but as more and more authors embrace it as 'truth', I expect sometime in the future for it to be upgraded to canon. So I desist upholding the case.

I am interested in the VT-1C initial availability, before M7 Dynamite.

I'll probably need to redo Duvallier testimony, as it implies VT-1 and VE-1 as being designed after Space War. Although I feel it that way, whatever VFMF Space Wings states, I am not so sure about going that way in the long term. I had planned for the VFMF to be a revisionism, made by people that didn't think some feats would be possible for Macross crew alone. But in the long term, as more and more authors embrace VFMF as truth, I can expect it to really be canon, so...

On a second reading, he isn't implying anything other than working toward what would be known as VT-1C and his desire to be in the ongoing war effort.

Yamada Keiko, SDF-1 survivor.
I was in the FX team for the drama series. Ishiguro-san tasked us to convey the awe of Macross transformation sequence. I refused, I had lost a significant one during the first, it was too personal for me. Ishiguro-san gave me a copy of the storyboard, how he planned to film it, how a fellow Zentraedi had described seeing it. I got my resolve as I saw Noboru did not die for nothing. So I made it. I made it for Noboru. I made it to honor everyone we lost to be alive, to be able to tell their stories. Ishiguro-san treated it respectfully, he didn't hid anything, everyone had to understand what sacrifices we made to be here, today.

"you DON’T. MESS. WITH. A. CAT"

LOL

Nor Isamu. Never get messed by Isamu

It was fun to read. Nice depiction of Voldorian individuality.

Jon Méndez, SDF-1 survivor.

I was part of the small team of local TV broadcast trapped and rescued by Macross. Someone approached me one day in the knowing and asked me to collaborate in the making of a drama series about the events. The thing is, we ourselves never knew much of what was going on at the time. We received full collaboration from the military that time, to a degree sadly not seen since then, even from some micronized Zentraedi. They insisted it was a document for future generations. There were things we couldn't do on a set, however. That is why you don't see much of any city there, mostly miniatures, close takes or Macross City from different angles. Still we tried to show what cities looked like back then, how we lived our everyday lives. I wish we could had shown more.

I don't know about Saotome family, if those were some of SDF-1 survivors or not. About Pacific Islands, it seems those were somewhat spared if no cities were present. I don't know about commercial shipping in the Pacific.

I work under the impression survivors were found all around the globe, but not all rescued on time. Most survivors are around Grand Cannon sites, and from an interviewer point of view, it is easier to search for those. I don't outright discard a survivor from Toulouse, but I'd rather make Jean Duvallier as someone born there than putting something like 'Toulouse survivor'.

I like your idea about data bunkers, thought. But those would have something of an archeological site status, as no one can tell anymore where those are, as Earth geographical features have changed. I even toyed about the idea the reason Macross-F had such a retro fetish was a recently discovered cache of (mostly) never built auto designs.

Thank you very much.

I was worried about proper naming for a given nationality, and continuity errors. Seto Kaiba pointed me some misconceptions about survivors: it seems entire spatial colonies survived. It doesn't contradict anything, but... I would rework the thing about communications. I felt amused about the irascible guy trying to explain, after 20-30-40 years (have not decided yet), what we 'knew' about the 20th century.

I was working under the idea most of the websites didn't make it. Wikipedia, lost. Gutenberg Project, forget it. But not only websites, as the internet providers would have been erased like most of the cable infrastructure. If any website was still there, with any kind of emergency power, it was disconnected from the rest, as Internet was no more. Forget about world heritage sites. Forget about Giza pyramids, museums,... all that has survived is local data on some unbroken solid storage media. Like scanning every last SD card for whatever it had. About the Saudi student involved in some project, maybe it had something to do with what later would be known as Epsilon. I thought about a Turkish first (a Palestinian would have been too cliche), but didn't found a good reason for him to be there.

It is also about stressed as we should to document everything we knew and trying to make a tomorrow happen, most of the present got lost in the process. The Shadow Years, a time where very little is known about how we made it as a species, how we dealt with loss.

What bunker things? Internet node bunkers? PirateBay-like?

Watch Delta till #13, then watch Zero #5 and just pretend Mikumo got a tan and Hayate just got over coloring his hair.

First, Nousjadel-Ger differences are more acute, and thus point to two different batches.

Second, I meant the cosmetic differences between both Q-Rau models. While those can also be two batches of the Q-Rau, if you take into account *all* the series are a retelling of events, it could be *one* batch of Q-Rau, with and without dramatic, cosmetic, make-up. Forget it. While cosmetic, those are still significant enough to justify two different batches. Most changes in apparent shape can be done with new painting scheme, but having a different total height is not that easy.

to the best of my knowledge, the Prometheus was only carrying a handful of atmospheric craft like Sea Sergeant helecopters, ES-11 Cat's Eye recon planes, and Dragon II fighters

I was even unaware of those Dragon II, but was either those or Avenger II. Or both. That complement of atmospheric craft was the one I was refereeing to. You can also safely account for the Comancheros that Daedalus *must* had if she was properly stocked. Plus some form of troop transport.

As we have seen, and I have pointed out, on many occasions... both the TV and DYRL versions of mecha exist in canon side-by-side. In truth, it's really more like the DYRL versions of a few mecha like the Nousjadeul-Ger totally replaced the TV series versions... though we do see things like the TV and DYRL version of Zentradi body armor side-by-side in the same units (like the NUNSM Zentradi garrison on Gallia IV).

But we can't discard one of those, or even both, are movie props, as we can't assure if Macross 7 Encore are real, slightly different mecha from another batch, or DYRL? reused props. The same applies for Gallia-4 scene.

Exactly that. Every movie have its share of goofs. From an in-universe point of view, using more modern VF-1A would be imperceptible for everyone but the nitpickers, even if it constitutes an anachronism. We are debating if the VT-1 and VE-1 are also anachronism or not, but it is sure those weren't used in the original series. Zentraedi equipment also appears to have been considerably improved, at least the Nousjadel-Ger and the Nupetiet-Vergnitz. Q-Rau modifications are too slight to be able to say it is a modified batch instead of cosmetic make-up for the shake of movie drama. It matches 'Macross-7 Encore' model.

Also, there is an entire scene with holography which a young earthling of the 2020s can relate too as an entertainment form, but was period-inappropriate for SDF-1 shakedown cruise.

You could have pointed to the presence of at least a spare VF-1D whereas no VT-1 was onboard. There was also a significant portion of atmospheric fighters and helicopters other than the ES-11D.

there were any or not among the Macross's carrier air wings is unclear, because we've never yet had a full inventory of the ~300+ VF-1s assigned to it throughout the entire war. There weren't any when she launched, but we don't know if she could have picked some up when she returned to Earth and was resupplied.

Macross had an onboard production facility that churned out 1 HWR-00-Mk. II Monster, 40 ADR-04-Mk. X Defender and over 20 SDR-04-Mk. XII Phalanx. Why it didn't built VT-1 or VE-1 is anyone guess, as it was more than capable of building a VEFR-1. Accepted canon may say otherwise, but onscreen canon make it feel counter-intuitive: if the VF-1D derived VEFR-1 was equally flawed, there was every reason to build a VE-1 instead. But didn't. For some reason VEFR-1 schematics were readily available for Macross to build, but VE-1 ones weren't.

To be fair, we don't really see Earth much between 2012 and 2040

To be fair, airliners may not have been present because entire civil airliners manufacturers were destroyed, but also because Earth population was more interested in traveling to any other planet than traveling from desert to desert. High density occupation airliners were surely not that demanded.

As far as the ships go... you may be getting a false impression of what that ventral fin is for. It folds flat against the ship's ventral hull when in water, and contains the ship's fold system.

That I didn't know. Some small recreational boats are seen in Plus, but to be fair, anything I said up there applies also here. Also, there was contact with other species with some seafaring know-how.

T-Crush is one of those school sports, y'know... and it's hardly nonviolent.

OK, I concede... I concede that sometime between 2040 and 2046, violent sport broadcasting was fashionable again.

A 2031 movie. Within the official timeline.

However, feel free to be confused, as the original series itself has been stated as a drama series about the real events. What 'real' events? Think about W.W.2nd. That was real. Every one of the series, dramas, movies and even documentaries are to some degree a certain retelling of the events, even the closer to truth ones.

Most of us consider SDFM series the most close to the 'real' events as some controversial events are not hidden in any way, as both South Ataria and Ontario disasters, both event left out of the DYRL? retelling.

Back to the issue at hand, Macross had an onboard production facility that churned out 1 HWR-00-Mk. II Monster, 40 ADR-04-Mk. X Defender and over 20 SDR-04-Mk. XII Phalanx. Why it didn't built VT-1 or VE-1 is anyone guess, as it was more than capable of building a VEFR-1.

Accepted canon may say otherwise, but onscreen canon make it feel counter-intuitive.

There are, for the record, official publications which establish the presence of VT-1 and VE-1 units during the First Space War. The "Variable Fighter Aero Report" in This is Animation Macross Plus is one such source. To give an example, it establishes the presence of a UN Spacy Marine Corps training squadron, SVMAT-102 and its VT-1 Super Ostriches, aboard ARMD-04 Clemenceau for three months starting in October 2009. (It also places a UN Spacy unit with VT-1s, SVT-24) aboard ARMD-02 Invincible.)

So started to be deployed, but no one was present in either Macross, Prometheus or Daedalus.

That probably has a lot to do with the relative size and efficiency of fold systems... they were big, unwieldy things for most of the postwar years, and small fold systems like a fold booster were only good for an extremely small object over an extremely short distance, one way only. It probably took a while to miniaturize the engine technology enough to mount a fold system that was reusable and long ranged on something the size of a jet airliner.

... Let's try again. After Space War, we saw a spacefaring cruise liner, way before we ever saw again any kind of airliner. Airliner meaning it has no space capability in any way, and of course no fold capability. Shipbuilding know-how was also probably affected, if one is to judge the seaworthiness of space ships by the big stability keel of Uraga-class pointing to stability problems in high sea states (that she can absolutely avoid by simply taking off).

I doubt it... Macross 7 Trash paints a picture of an educational system where sports (televised in particular) are one of the key things keeping physical school campuses open... and that this state of affairs has been the norm for some time.

Educational. Not violent. Educational. See the trend?

It's quite official, not bootleg. Drawn by Mikimoto-sensei himself.

The legality of T-Crush sport. Not the manga. The sport.

Perhaps I should have chosen a better word than "improvised" to describe the design origin of the VEFR-1. It wasn't something the crew of the Macross put together, it was one of a number of special purpose variants that were built only in the earliest VF-1 production blocks to fill a particular operational niche before the introduction of a proper dedicated model.

Correct me if I am wrong, but those 'facts' are stated in non-canon Variable Fighter Master File VF-1 Space Wings, that itself state that is a work of fiction 'based on the 2030 book'... or something like that. That also goes for what you asserted about the VE-1 'being available before Space War'. For all we know, VEFR-1 may in fact be one of a kind, and is a fact be don't see any VT-1, VE-1 or VC-1 until way later. At best, that book could be considered as civil research on military unclassified reports, two decades later, as many Salamander Books about military forces all around the world. Those may be as close to truth as 'original research' disproving Apollo Moon Landing, however.

Why does everyone always forget about the space colonies in orbit, the bases and colony on the moon, and the manufacturing station at Earth-Moon L5 which served as Earth's primary shipyard until the capture of the Esbeliben AWDAP facility after the war?

Oops. Those survived the war? Or were destroyed by Bodolza fleet as well? I was under the impression not even ancient edifications were spared, as an alien species may be unaware if the pyramids house none or thousands of micronians, or about its purpose, civil, military or otherwise. Why I say that? Hikaru flied day after day for any hint of green. Not even Amazonas forest location provided any. And there are no evident targets in Amazonas, beyond Brasilia City.

That was a purpose-built interstellar cruise liner

Alas, I should have used another phrasing for that: we see an interstellar cruise liner way before any kind of large airliner.

It's generally an unwise assumption to assume that just because we haven't seen a thing in the show that it doesn't exist.

Agreed, under the assumption the original author may well say 'hey! you have not seen any until now, but the things have existed since...'. However, until the time of such kind of statements, what is not shown, may or may not exist. Like the limited number of VEFR-1, VT-1 and VE-1 Variable Fighter Master File assures existed before SDF-1 launch.

Every one of the sport events you cited (except Macross M3 motorcycling) happen way after Macross Plus. And racing is not necessarily violent or prone to contact between participants (it may happen, but not in the same way as football). And those were the ones broadcasted. I didn't state anywhere that people stopped practicing sports. In impoverished Earth, it may be one of the very few distractions. It is broadcasting those what seems to be infrequent for at least an entire generation.

I am however curious about the fact it is never on screen, but on manga or videogames that those events are portrayed. Even more curious is that Macross Trash 'T-Crush' is an ultraviolent sport that involves something not developed until 2039. As I have not read the manga, I don't know its legality status (seems highly illegal) or if it is broadcasted in any way.

[Edit] About the size of ES-11 antenna, what I said was 'avionics installed on an emptied VF-1D'. The (mostly) 2D antenna may be irrelevant in space, with blind sector directly above and directly below, or may be overkill for Gloval needs or research may have made a smaller antenna as sensitive as the larger one, or close, with some additional radar antennas covering blind sectors. The only thing it is known for sure is that by Space War end, an Early Warning adaptation of VF-1 was used instead of a hastily-converted-for-space ES-11D. Maybe maneuverability served it better than longer range for the envisioned engagement.

This thread intends to be somewhat of an ongoing toy project, while trying to not contradict canon in any way. Contributions are (still) not allowed. Criticism is welcome, more so if you feel canon was contradicted in any way. However, if it contradicts *your* vision of events, try to accommodate. If you can't, feel free to start another thread: I love different versions of the same events.

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After Macross settled for the first time in what we now know as Macross City, most of Macross inhabitants found a world forever gone, a desolate world where nothing grew on the soil, where survival, both in a cultural and literal sense, was a day-to-day full time job:

Marina Simonova, SDF-1 survivor.
The first years where busy, really busy. The military interviewed us, sometimes even twice, to register and file what we used to be, work experience, what had we learned or what could we teach others to do. I remember being somewhat uneasy at first by the overly intrusive nature of the interviews, but then I was struck by the enormity of what it transpired: we where on the verge of losing all our culture, all that defined us as a species.

Simmon Addams, GC III survivor.
Day after day we sensed the fighters overflew us in search of survivors, os so they told us. Then we were forcefully relocated where some kind of alien ship had crashed. Those nazis felt it was easier to scrap metal from the thing than trying to find mining sites under the dust to unearth it the old fashioned way. What? You don't know what a 'nazi' was? Oh, sonny, those were!

Norberto Barroso, GC V survivor.
I was a clerk and suddenly found myself attending classes of how to make crops grow in the desert, how to irrigate drop by drop for best results. I knew I was somewhere in what Amazonia used to be, but nothing, not even mountain features could aid to know where exactly I was. I remember crying, crying in silence over a very small crop, growing. I still do, sometimes.

Jean Duvallier, GC I survivor.
We were buried alive. Machinery and rocks fell over me and a fellow scientist was trying her best to maintain me alive. Days later, those felt like months, the military found us, but my leg was lost forever. While still recovering, a military aide interviewed me about my work on Alaska Base. As soon as I was stable enough, I was told I was put on a team tasked with simplifying VF-1 design without compromising its utility on secondary roles, from patrol to precision soldering space work mecha, with an entirely civilian version envisioned. I was also told a different team was tasked to improve VF-1 lethality. I would have loved to be put on VF-4 design team, but...

Leah Meir, GC III survivor.
I graduated at Haifa as a software engineer and felt my talent was wasted on maintenance, on a lucrative contract with South African authorities. Then the skies fell and I suddenly was in charge of locally re-imagining the Internet (chuckles). I struggled to remember hardware notions I never were too good at, without any of my books. As soon as we managed to somehow interconnect major survivor sites via satellite relay awful signal delay, I took unto myself the duty to store and disseminate whatever software or digital copies of anything fell into my hands. In time, a cache of information science books in digital form was found on a broken pad, property of a deceased Saudi student on GC I site, and someone uploaded it all.

Jon Méndez, SDF-1 survivor.

I was part of the small team of local TV broadcast trapped and rescued by Macross. Someone approached me one day in the knowing and asked me to collaborate in the making of a drama series about the events. The thing is, we ourselves never knew much of what was going on at the time. We received full collaboration from the military, to a degree sadly not seen since then, even from some micronized Zentraedi. They insisted it was a document for future generations. There were things we couldn't do on a set, however. That is why you don't see much of any city there, mostly miniatures, close takes or Macross City from different angles. Still we tried to show what cities looked like back then, how we lived our everyday lives. I wish we could had shown more.

Yamada Keiko, SDF-1 survivor.
I was in the FX team for the drama series. Ishiguro-san tasked us to convey the awe of Macross transformation sequence. I refused, I had lost a significant one during the first, it was too personal for me. Ishiguro-san gave me a copy of the storyboard, how he planned to film it, how a fellow Zentraedi had described seeing it. I got my resolve as I saw Noboru did not die for nothing. So I made it. I made it for Noboru. I made it to honor everyone we lost to be alive, to be able to tell their stories. Ishiguro-san treated it respectfully, he didn't hid anything, everyone had to understand what sacrifices we made to be here, today.

Leslie Nielsen's 'Forbidden Planet'?

As I feel like it, I think I can go on some more.

The UNAF was more than happy with EC-33B, the Navy had the aforementioned ES-11D in service, and using a combat fighter for their mission was kind of wasteful. Maybe there were plans, but the UNSpacy had the Oberth-class destroyer to investigate. The only ones with real necessity for an Early Warning type of craft was the crew of the stranded Macross, so it is somewhat safe to assume the first ever VEFR-1 was made there. Please mind the function of such a design is not only to detect, but to transmit enemy coordinates to nearby assets. Air Controllers are needed, inside the craft or outside, in some kind of base with unobstructed line of communication with both the early warning craft and fighter squadrons. Think about Luca's RVF-25: if he was involved in *any* form of combat, his capability as forward air controller/observer fell to zero. Thus the UNAF probably was *WAY* better served with the EC-33B.

After Space War, anything not physically or digitally aboard Macross was lost forever, or almost. Survivors evacuated into the Grand Cannon superweapons can be expected to be civilians directly involved in military R+D and/or living nearby. Think about this: we have seen an interplanetary passenger transport cruiser in Macross Plus before we ever saw again a passenger liner. Forget Boeing, forget Airbus, forget Ingalls, forget Daewoo Shipbuilding. Forget also about Hollywood FX industry and know-how: the technology may be there, but the art to combine it gracefully, not so. TV broadcast weather forecast kind of effects, at most, and Zentraedi bridge hologram technology later on (with entertainment focused byproducts). Have you seen any sport event broadcast lately on any Macross show? In time, those may, or may not have a comeback, but it may be a real possibility that sports involving any kind of violence may be frowned upon on fear of triggering Zentran aggressive berserk-like behavior.

Space defense against further Zentraedi attacks could have been managed by Britai Kridanik remaining Adoclass fleet to a degree, but capturing a Factory Satellite was a priority to have any chance of survival against any sizable fleet. Adapting such satellite to produce new designs, from emigrant ships all the way down to reconstruction equipment, was a necessity. Capability to replenish losses was also crucial, so one of the first designs adapted to be produced in the factory satellite would have been the VF-1, which the Macross engineers and civilians involved in OT projects near Grand Cannons knew so well. I'll put, without further evidence, the origin of VT-1 and VE-1 there. And then the even less militarized, somewhat larger Shuttle/ Small Cargo/ Jack-of-all-trades RC-4 Rabbit.

One of the many anachronistic designs put there in the 2031 reenactment, as building a VEFR-1 from spares for no other purpose than a movie would have been over the top.

I bet the presence of Destroids in DYRL only points to the surprisingly large number of survivors, as those were other mecha without any obvious role other than re-purposed mobile point defense, the MBR-07 being the worst case, used for battroid-mode training, demolition or construction roles.

(*) I am obviously making assumptions from an in-universe perspective. I am also assuming both VT-1 and VE-1 were made *after* Space War conclusion or otherwise not present either on Macross, Daedalus or Prometheus. Some extended universe assumptions made those available before SDF-1 first flight, but not necessarily deployed to.

(**) Although VF-1D have combat capability, I assume early in the Space War most of those on SDF-1 were stripped of combat equipment to repair VF-1As. Thus putting ES-11 avionics inside became a possibility.

The SDF-1 had to do with whatever was available to her. It was either adapting the ES-11 for space use or not using those at all. I bet they also got a load of Avengers, Comancheros and Sea Sergeants without any obvious use other than spare avionics.

Once battles began, the engineers had their hands full with VF-1 to repair, or having lost so many pieces to be able to be fully restored to battle conditions. Those unfit for battle could still be used for secondary roles, and maintaining a single design was more sound than maintaining two or more. By the time a ES-11 was damaged, stripping the equipment to put in a VF-1 frame (**) that had lost combat capability for whatever reason was a sound option, thus the VEFR-1.

(**) See note below, in my next post.

Nope... if you go back a little further up in my post where I broke down the masses of the FAST packs, that 10,000kg or so is the mass of the VF-31's FAST packs on their own, after subtracting the mass of the fuel and munitions the pack contains and the mass of the fighter itself.

True, I forgot you had that into account. SPS-25 official weight figure clearly states it is *only* the pack, while tentatively named SPS-31 uses the same formula as the one given for the APS-25, adding the fighter mass to the number.

Then, it is as you stated: or the 'SPS-31' is highly inefficient, or it is clearly more heavily armored. As a defensive fighter, it makes sense. However, Kairos should have both a lighter SPS and a heavier APS. Kawamori already stated the VF-25 was an opportunity for him to make 'a modern VF-1', and the VF-31 is his opportunity to make 'a modern VF-11' (the fast packs have a strong resemblance to VF-11 ones). However, the armored VF-11 was kind of super-heavy, and it is a real pity we couldn't see a modern incarnation of that.

Maybe those 10,000Kg of 'mystery' still wait for the fighter weight to be substracted. After all, APS-25 figures for *standard operating mass* include it.

Waiting further confirmation, that seems to point we have not seen tentatively named APS-31 because SPS-31 falls in between. Having not one but two shields may aid at that. Jack of all trades.