TG Remix

I'm hoping too, since the cover on the middle left lists practically almost everything made from both VF-X games, the Ride, and 30. M3 is listed alongside Advanced Valkyrie, which makes some sense considering the VF-9 and VF-3000 came from that project, but the Variable Glaug and combiner mech is brand new from the game. A part of me wishes it didn't just limit itself to VFs and Destroids though, since that blocks off the conventional Zentradi mechs and others like the Gilgamesh. Looking into it for a bit, turns out it's being made by GA Graphic, the same people who's behind the Master File books...Which explains a bit of the preview pages. Turns out there's some in its Amazon listing, with particularly interesting paragraphs. There's old forgotten lore like the VF-2 being based on the VF-XX Zentran Valkyrie, and more interesting additions, like the VF-19EF/A specifically being a contender against the VF-31 for the next main variable fighter. An interesting one, considering the former is a 4th gen Valkyrie with VF-25 technology that's customized for Isamu to be close to the original prototype (Maybe it means for the Caliburn in general?) It also drops the VF-24 when talking about the VF-31 Armored Siegfried instead of the YF-24, which I don't think any other source does, and it states the YF-30 being a 6th generation prototype like the YF-29, which was the telltale sign for me that it was connected to the Master File books. https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/481562674X

I'm assuming you're referring to strictly animated series, because that is true. It's mostly the cases we see in spin offs and side material where either that 1st generation struggles, or they and future generations adopt the worst parts of culture. VF-X's villains do what they do to resurrect their way of endless war, to the point that Rival being glad that he surrendered to the Earthling's by dying as a warrior. The Musicalture presents the Neo-Zentran movement as one by a younger generation to militarize the literally defenseless Macross 29, but then you get scenes where they get stunned by the main character's singing. Most of M3's antagonists are explicitly or implied to be Zentradi, such as Struggle, the terrorist group who are made of Zentradi defectors from the UN. The New York Liberation League, which is in odds with the local Neo York government, consists of a variety of aircraft including the Gnerl, and Mission 2 where you fight and grab Moaramia away, the setting is the planet Cristrania, which is a fundamentalist Zentradi colony who's harboring the terrorists designing the Variable Glaug. Edit: There was also the 2nd Battle of Macross City that was alluded to in timelines and VF-X2, the one that not only banned giants on Earth but also had tens of thousands of Zentradi fleeing away as a result in anti-Earth colony ships....Why would Macross Chronicle tie the Macross 5 fleet to insurgents escaping judgement other then the fact they're also Zentradi emigrants is beyond me. I don't even know why that's a additional bit of lore to begin with! Of course they're not as prominent as the animated stuff, but it's one of those things where smaller material is indicative of the bigger fandom and/or creator mentality. I wouldn't be surprised if it's an attempt to integrate Zentradi language into the world a bit more. Not only it has some design language of their ships, but we get that plenty in Plus where many of Sharon's songs are sung in Zentran, and "Deculture" kind of becomes a loan word by Frontier. Was there ever an attempt of using higher quality of normal fold carbon for 5th Gen VFs? You think with such a finite source the government at large would try for a more economical alternative. On that train of thought, does fold carbon has its own supernatural qualities aside from being used on ships? As in, could it resonate in a way through music?

I meant specifically with the Zentran side, but yes those count as well. Always found it interesting that the Meltradi ships were not only used as Vinderance ships in VF-X2, but interestingly as UN Spacy stand in ships as well, since not only the Landing Ship Tank is used for the Embatelion cargo ship in Mission 3, but they also have an fleet of them in Mission 9, as their LSTs and Gunboats are used to launch reaction weapons against Vinderance.... ...Which makes this comment very funny to me, at least as one of many reasons. VF-X2 directly challenges that wonderfully, since Mission 9 has the twist that you were manipulated to do the antagonists dirty work the whole time: the UN themselves. While it is mostly the Earth-centric Latence faction and not the overarching UN as a whole, the game puts you in the position that questions if characters who are antagonist coded are always bad. In a way, Aegis, and you as the player, is in the same position as the Zentradi and Protodevlin, where the true protagonists are convincing you to join the better side. Aside from VF-X2's turning the status quo over your head, I personally disagree with that notion when SDF not only emphasized how humanity and Zentradi aren't that different when it comes to their lust for war/control/power, but on the other end of their coin because of their similarities that's what should unite them as one. It just feels like the franchise makes their supposed coexistence a one-way street, where Overtechnology seems to only improve human technology, and when a Zentradi character stands out from the rest of the humans, whether by appearance or personality, they're mostly singled out for how predisposed to violence they are. Even with human characters who as much, if not more, despicable things. It's "Schrodinger's Savages," where cultured Zentradi are just green skinned humans who are perfectly integrated until the plot needs them to not be for the sake of having easy, nondescript antagonists, whether it's them being naturally violent or having their genetics be taken advantage of. It's in most series one way or another, but it got to its worst in Macross 7 Trash, where it flat out states that they didn't even have emotions until they interacted with Earthlings. (Keep in mind I'm purely talking in a narrative sense and not in-universe, it always just bugged me how disingenuous it felt, especially when future stories, especially Frontier when that was being aired at the time that claim was made, always play with the notion that being on the protagonists and antagonist sides isn't always that black and white.) Theoretically yes, but there's been more then enough examples of cultured Zentradi that pilot said mobile weapons. There's wiggle room with Black Rainbow and the rouge Zentradi like with the ones from M3 with varying backgrounds, but I heavily doubt all of Delta's Marines are from the defector's generation. Klan Klang especially, since she takes the upmost pride regarding her heritage. I suppose the compromise for both in universe and production parties would be making more VFs with more Zentradi technology like the VF-5000, VF-22, and VF-14 lineage, but most of them are rarely depicted in material proper, and when they do, they're modified to look more conventionally heroric like 7 Dynamite's VF-5000G, or even more monstrous like the Varauta Army's catalogue. In terms of the player character I understand, it's also why Ace Combat opts to call player characters by callsigns then as developed characters. The other male characters really feel like they don't have any excuses... Interestingly enough after the events of VF-X, it's said that he retired from the military at some point and become a Interstellar Express Valkyrie pilot, so that's interesting I suppose. Always wondered how that'd work in practice when Frontier made nods to that, how would they handle or carry cargo compared to a dedicated cargo plane?

Huh, I can see the similarities. Wondered why we never saw the Golg Gants Charts after the movie, or most of the DYRL only designs. They were, yes. The manual explicitly states that the enemy aircraft are Zentradi weapons improved with Earth technology and amongst it's engine and armor improvements, were given a polyhedral structure to increase its stealth capabilities. Mission 7 has you trailing one of the stealth scout pods towards the mobile weapon factory that they were made to destroy it's manufacturing capabilities and to save Freesia, so it definitely was. The buried fortress, which was seemingly disguised as an island, also launched in the next mission after saving Violeta. The stealth pods are 100% just them making the easiest things to model for a 3rd party budget game for the Playstation, since they were completely focused on making the Valkyries look good with the skills the 3D modelers had instead of just making the SDF designs as is. (I'd go far as to say the same about the Feios, since there's details that don't match with it's official artwork, particularly the head.) It's also petty telling when we got VF-X2, they went right back to the regular designs for Black Rainbow, barring the game specific ones. Frankly I'm wondering how come they never popped up in Macross Chronicle, since the Macross Digital Mission VF-X Official Program book has all the concept art for the game, including enemy designs. Honestly that's only one of many examples of the game's shallow priorities. It does not care for anything except advertising the Variable Fighters and cute idols, to the point that in the game's manual it emphasizes how Milky Dolls had prolific actresses portraying them then anything about the game itself. To this day I still can't fathom why they couldn't even bother to give Captain, Enemy Commander, Rival, and You (yes you, the player,) proper names when all of the female characters ae given such and quirky personality traits, none of which are presented in the game. Did you know Powan Howan has a stuffed animal named Picotin she carries around, and Freesia and Violeta were twins? Me neither! If it wasn't for Miho's actress reprising her role I genuinely wouldn't even notice that a pretty frequent character in Macross 7 was even there. The story is as barebones as it gets for it too. For one there's no explanation on why colonization efforts on Elysium were abandoned despite being very developed as is, since there were 4 pretty sizeable cities built with a huge military base accompanying one. It's only set dressing to have giant city arenas. And it's already bad enough that the plot is just "Rogue Zentradi #3447 is acting up and you need to stop them," but you'd think with them kidnapping the Milky Dolls would mean something in the grand scheme of things, since they were a source of income for the UN's Sound Project and that'd absolutely go against their plans for warring over the galaxy. But it turns out that they were just regular hostages to build time for Commander's mobile fortress to fold to Earth. That, honestly broke me, it's one thing to have a basic, even undercooked story, as I'm pretty forgiving for most of Delta's fallings. But this can't can't even do the bare minimum with easy to connect plot points. It's fascinating how VF-X2 is the sequel to this game, with it's plot it genuinely feels like it was written as a response/challenge to Digital Mission's by the books story. Spending three long days during Ramadan MTL'ing the game with YouTube's auto subtitles (Not realizing I could've just used JollyRoger_Macross' Spanish translation as a reference months later,) and going through VF-X2 and M3 before is definitely influencing my feelings on the game, but there's nothing else in this franchise that infuriates me with how much it doesn't even try to do anything that pushes the envelope. Well, aside from Macross 7 Trash, but that's its own can of worms. (Tangent aside, it would really be nice to see more Zentradi mecha built with earth technology incorporated instead of having reheated SDF leftovers...) Not at all. However the Feios Valkyrie also has a similar dome structure with an eye sensor as its cockpit, so maybe it's just a Zentradi thing to not have a open canopy on either giant or miclone mechs. I always was fascinated by game only vehicles, like Meltradi Assault Plunder ship used in the same game, and the jamming station that interferes with Minmay's "Do You Remember" in the middle of the finale. VF-X2 had a nice variety as well, like the unmanned stealth submarine Roqual, the Annabella Lasiodora in the UN's Ceres Base, and the like. Granted all of these are from Critical Path Corporation and are there to be gimmicky bosses, but it's nice to see some other ship variety that isn't the standard Guantanamo and Uragas. Even without the context of the game, I can see the likes of the Vandal gunship and Hatchet-class destroyer being used in some UN Spacy fleets. Reminds me of a off comment Kamujin made in SDF about retiring an old Zentradi who no longer had a use, I can't seem to specifically remember what he said. But I wouldn't put it past them "recycling" them if applicable.

Since we've seen a few of them in games like M3, VF-X2, and 30, it can be safe to say that someone in the galaxy has been reproducing them since. Not sure if I want to count the Glaug Kai/Stealth Glaug as an upgraded unit due to the sheer size of it and the other stealth pods in Digital Mission VF-X. They make even the Monster series look tiny. On the topic of game only Zentradi units, I always wondered what was the pilot accommodation of VF-X2's Gjagravan-Va, since there doesn't seem to be any official stats of it. I assumed it was like the VB-6 where there was a pilot and two officers handling communications and other weapons, but Kodachi seemed to think that it's able to be piloted by giants, as Laplamiz was in control of one in the 30 novelization. Oh I meant like, I thought there was only one Queadluun-Rau factory satellite instead of two; one they got from the 20 and the other one they got in 2035, unless I'm just getting myself confused again lol.

Not exactly what you're asking for since Seto already answered, but the NUNS additionally has the Neo Glaug in their arsenal for their giant pilots as well, which is a transforming battle pod (and a variable attacker for miclones,) which not only has its own convoluted history from the Anti-UN Variable Glaug, but is said to be high performing that no one other then a small Meltran could tap into its full power. Between that and the Queadluun-Rhea, I'd think the giant grunts could use something akin to the VF-171, a workhorse that probably won't melt like butter the moment a VF crosses arms with it. There's also the improved Super Glaug that the 130th Independent Marine Battalion also had, presumably in lesser numbers because of its role as a commander battlepod. And huh, I was under the impression that there was only one factory satellite that was seized by that time and the UN Queadluun stock was running out because they were working with the very few they acquired from the defectors after The First Space War was done with. It's unfortunate and kinda weird how we don't have any "immediate" source for this machine tbh; not only there's not a single sourcebook trying to explain it's mechanical stats or history where Mkyatake's designs from VF-X2 did, but from the scan you can garner that it was drawn by Kawamori, yet it's not present in any artbook that catalogues his concept art for the franchise. The most I can gather from it is what's presented from the game itself; it's piloted by 3 giants, specifically Moaramia clones that were cloned(?) to test the natural body functions of Zentradi...Whatever that means.

I was under the assumption that the bigger NUNS body believed the Minmay Attack was a fluke, and skipped that step before ordering some unfortunately placed fleet to unleash the arsenal. 7's "Fleet of the Strongest Woman" seems to believe that, even further by Chronicle where it more or less state that the outcome of a pacified fleet hasn't happened up until that point since SWI. There's another difference from the Macross II timeline I suppose. The Macross 30 novelization also elaborates on this as well, where it explains upon discovery of it there's two outcomes of it; there's selling the rights to a megacorporation or a emigrant fleet, and the former wouldn't give me high hopes considering the track record of Macross Galaxy. Less smoothly, there's also been armed conflicts between two different fleets that broke out over the right to claim the planet for colonization, which of course would get the Earth government to intervene. Could explain where some of those wars from Isamu's military record came from, and further explanation on the UN and Latence's stance on more direct control towards the other governments by VF-X2. M3 also touches a bit on habitable the planets are. Even as early as 2014, where Eden, a Class-A planet, was established, there was Neo York that developed enough to have a territory called New Alabama (yes, really.) and several years later in 2020 it had enough inter conflict where the New York Liberation League is at odds with the local government. Since Eden has been stated to be the first colonized planet, my money is on Neo York either being a Class A planet or one that didn't need extensive terraforming before settling. Also of note is Cristrania, which was noted as a natural planet developed for Zentradi life, which I'm assuming it means it's a planet good for giants to live in, and Dahan, which was referred to as a resource planet. Considering how it looked like it only had 5 Namekian minutes left, that probably was the best use of it, whatever resources they get from it. Fold carbon/crystals maybe?

Considering that by the time of the 5th Generation Variable Fighters, most of them are derivatives from the YF-24 which are intended for their local government or to sell to other governments. I don't imagine the Zentradi head being on the "stock" VF-24A, but a for a VF-24 for Zentradi pilots like what the VA-14 was to the VF-14 I'm all on board with! It'd probably be the only way you would get me to buy a VF-24/25 toy of lol As for my personal pick, I do agree the VF-31 head is the best one as a reference, but from the YF-24 diagram it seems like it's head wouldn't be too far from the VF-25's. Though comparing it to the G types, which is the same as the A type, the head of the Evolution is noticeably less wide, so the Halo inspired one seems to be on the right track.

Looking through the recently scanned Macross 30 Visual Complete Guide (curtesy of @PixelatedShinobi,) I was curious on what it said about the VF-19E, since its Mechanics section had a little bit of information of the variable fighters itself. It's described to be an aircraft Aisha personally tuned through abusing her privileges as the branch manager (lol), and interestingly also states "the system and basic configuration are based on the E-type, but the head and legs are closer to the A-type." The novelization of 30, written by the same who wrote the game's version Ukyō Kodachi, also states that Aisha's VF-19E is "a special variant called the AE/MF, which is strictly based on the AE but with an appearance closer to the 19A." The AE designation confuses me a bit, but since the novelization is based off an older draft of the game's story from the afterword, it could be something that can be shrugged off. Either way it's safe to assume the stock VF-19E would look different, I reckon the head and leg parts closer to 7's F-type, as The Ride's EF-type is shown to have both, judging from the first illustration of the first volume. If there's anything else that peaks my interest for a conversation the book, I'll be back to share!

The only variant yet mentioned has been the VF-24A, yes, and the details are predictably pretty sparse. Honestly though, don't let yourself feel "locked in" by what the official media says. The (partially redacted) YF-24 Evolution blueprints were shared to all New UN Government member governments galaxy-wide. It's very likely (bordering on a certainty) that multiple emigrant governments working with less resources than the fantastically wealthy Frontier and Galaxy fleets either opted to purchase export variants of the VF-24 directly from Earth's government or just used their own locally produced technology to fill in the various gaps left by the omission of Earth's proprietary developments and produced their own version of the VF-24 via a build-under-license agreement. There are likely a bunch of slightly different local variations of the VF-24A with slightly different capabilities depending on who built them, which could go anywhere from differences in equipment and armament to changes in appearance. EDIT: I should add, this same logic applies to basically ANY VF produced from the 4th Generation onwards... with the VF-19, VF-22, and VF-171 all having local variations that've appeared prominently in Macross the Ride, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta. A beautiful official customization carte blanche for fanart and fanfics. 😉 Even before that generation we get some generous variations. The VF-14 has two official designs which design language (one's a lot more bulkier then the other, curtesy of Miyatake designing the Fz-109's Battroid mode,) and even armaments like the 7 Plus' lack of shoulder laser cannons and M3's lack of chest cannons, is noticeably different, but they're only considered variations of each other as opposed to the VF-171 being a different aircraft that's only based off the VF-17. The VF-19 is also a good example though, as the ones from 7 took noticeable differences from the A-type based off the YF-19; notably its shoulders and legs being structured a bit differently. (As a side note, always made me curious on how a more "bulkier" VF-24/VF-25 would look, as if he was designing it for a 90's series) It's the beauty of Macross's potential, the vast universe is ripe for freedom of whatever setting and designs you want to work with. It's even better with the franchise's loose sense of continuity.

Makes sense. Disease won't rip through an entire unit, and can't be attacked by a custom-engineered bioweapon that targets a specific genetic sequence. On the other hand, it results in soldiers with diverse heights and builds, complicating supply of equipment. But the protoculture seemed to have solved supply lines with their typical excess. Which serves to be ironic as when humans started to clone themselves to bolster their numbers to avoid extinction, they had to stop because they came across the issue of hereditary children's diseases popping up 2 decades after. It seems like DYRL made the cloning process a bit more uniform, as the trio seem to be a lot closer in size then they were in the TV series, not mentioning how Exsedol and Britai doesn't have as noticeable of a height disparity as well.

The Cheyenne talk does make me wonder, the original ones in Zero were stationed as anti-aircraft interception units on Navy ships if I'm not mistaken. Would the ones that were that boarded the CVN-99 Asuka make more sense belonging to the UN Navy despite the UN Spacy marking? And maybe this is a general thing with ADR series like the Defender, but I wonder if there was actual merit to design complicated robots specifically for that role when you can have really strong guns attached to the ship.

Sorry for the double post, the forums didn't make me want to make a longer post! Honestly I'd love a series that focuses on a colony fleet researching the viability of a habitable world, especially early on since this made me think how inexperienced they'd be in terms of dealing with an entirely new ecosystem as well as juggling ergonomics and economics alongside that, Wouldn't be surprised if The Ride's events sparked that interest, though considering the Frontier's movie novelization had Octos Bis under military usage and presumably those being replica units with advanced weapons on top, it almost seems like the "lost" technology from the Unification War period wasn't all that lost as believed. Though admittedly, a part of that is me wanting Sv-52-like units popping up in the universe in between the time between SW1 and The Ride. Does kinda make me wonder, fold quartz are said to be a natural resource, and we get a whole conflict around that with the Windemeran War of Independence. Makes me think if about the detailing of fold quartz's discovery on other planets and asteroids circa around VF-X2's time; goodness forbid they're also home of autonomous governments who don't necessarily agree with the central government's ways (not just Windemere, since VF-X2's Vulcan and M3's Cristrania has existed at least a decade before Latence put pressure on governments who didn't side with Earth's policies.)

I wouldn't be surprised, since the two times we see the Spacy Marine Corps, not only they're Zentradi units but they're both stationed on planets as garrison units. And if you want to stretch it in a more liberal explanation of being a amphibious force, considering Marine Corps have operations done on the land and sea, I wouldn't be surprised if space was added in the mix for "amphibious" operations, like how sci-fi tends to have drop ships to land troops on planets from space. On a side note, was reminded of the MF render with a UN Spacy VF-1 flying alongside a few NUNS Marine branded Regults; I'm assuming this was suggesting that it's somewhat common for giant Zentradi units to be under that branch in the military? Rough is an understatement, and I'm one of the 5 people on the planet that has it as some of my favorite Gundam works, much less prefer it over Zeta itself!

With a Battroid that towers everything that isn't a Variable bomber, I can believe it could be used for long term missions like that. Not entirely sure if the Master File crew would even care about M3 beyond surface level lip surface (heck, even official material doesn't with any game with maybe VF-X2 and 30 as the exceptions), but my mind went to the few units the rebel group New York Liberation League had in Episode 3, alongside their VF-1 and Gnerls. Presumably it was to get stronger aircraft that wasn't a generation behind, but they seem to have enough influence against Neo York's planetary government that there's a delicate balance between them. It's a bit of a shame that even in MF weren't a lot of VF-3000s built, but not only it was something official materials stated long ago, but considering the 2nd generation was about having cost effective units in the world of blooming planetary governments, its cost effectiveness wouldn't be worth it considering it's larger then any airframe in that period, and most importantly, the joint slipping would be too much of a detriment to any governing body to adopt. Reminds me of how apparently in the Frontier novelization, it was said that SMS seemed to have a few Sv-52s used for The Bird Man movie, which is a pretty rare craft itself; I don't doubt SMS is rich enough to have a few genuine aircraft, but with Magdalena's being a replica based on a Sv-51 frame, makes me think if there were other cases of them being found and having replicas built. Although thinking about it more, I was under the assumption that the movie filmed in Frontier was the first public exposure of Zero's events, unless the MF's talking about war movies that depict other sorties and incidents with the Sv-51's involvement? They seem to be very few and far between. It's placement in the timeline being very dubious, since it's another "bashing everyone in a single timeline" game, but Shooting Insight in its finial stages seem to have all grey units of the Sv-303 being regular enemies, perhaps prototypes of the ones piloted by Yami Q Ray? They were deployed by the main villain of the story, Eris Beatrix, who is a member of Epsilon Foundation, so it doesn't seem unlikely. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they pulled a VF-19 with the 5th Gen VFs and make up a in-universe excuse that explains why they can't make high performance units like the VF-25, or even its Delta era contemporaries and make the 5th Gen grunts have a low quality fold quartz to make the 6th Gen VFs stand out even more. Assuming they even dabble with it anyways, wouldn't be surprised if we're stuck with the stick figure frames for a little bit more.