JB0

My Target restocked the Transformers section after the holiday devastation.
It now looks almost exactly like it did before. Bunch of Blitzwings, bunch of Jhiaxzus or however it's spelled, handful of Reaction figures(all G2 Grimlock dinosaur mode), a bunch of empty pegs, and a bunch of comic and Power Ranger toys hanging on pegs tagged as containing Transformers.

Notably, the Cyberverse stuff has all been replaced with Earthspark stuff. Almost. One peg ful of Cyberverse still.
...
And a single lonely Pointblank.

I kinda like the radiators on the elbows, even if they're in the way. Makes him look like he has integral weapons. Yes, yes, that's not canon, I know. But it's COOL.

Obvious signs of the simplification from the original concept sitting around, though. Most notable Peacemaker having a peg on his ass that would let him peg into a wrist like the japanese cartoon.... if Pointblank's wrists could fold in.

Wait a second, wait a second...

Before being rebuilt as the Megaroad, the SDF-2 wasn't intended as a colony ship, right? It was meant as another warship?

Then why the heck was it being built even bigger than the Macross, which was already so ludicrously oversized they had enough empty space to build a full training camp and functioning city inside it?! 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

One, two, or four barrels?

Two. Always been a 1J man.

6 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Makes you wonder if Max 's hair is still blue and he has to dye it grey just to convince people he's aging!

 

Headcanon accepted.

7 hours ago, cheemingwan1234 said:

What do the Zentraedi fleets do with Zentraedi too old/ worn out to fight?

 

Well, Kamjin used one as an excuse to shoot the Macross when he was told to fire a warning shot.

Beyond that... *shrug*

I assume they do their assigned tasks until they are unable, and then they keel over dead.

I really hope the buttcoin market's collapsed for good this time. But I expect another mania-fueled surge to rear it's ugly head again.

On 12/24/2022 at 3:48 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

we see exactly three, all of whom are the crew of the same old Monster Destroid. 

Also Millia and her private VF-1. That Gamlin stole and wrecked(never forgive, never forget)

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The expense must have been utterly ruinous without a pre-existing point of departure from our history though, at least going by what's known now (over what was known when Macross Zero was released).

It really seems like we should leave it at "history diverged at publication", but they've updated the timeline to reflect real-world historical events like the fall of the Soviet Union, so...

3 hours ago, RedWolf said:

Retirees that got their Valkyries and Destroids as part of their retirement package. 

If that's a part of the retirement plan, hell even if that's the ENTIRE retirement plan, just show me where I need to sign.

Because they recognized that making a jet plane that transformed into a robot was so fraught with peril that their test pilots would be heading right into the danger zone.

I'll see myself out.

18 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Official sources suggest 24 VF-0A, 6 VF-0B, 6 VF-0C, 18 VF-0D, and 4 VF-0S for a total of 58 VF-0s built.

That's not much worse than the real F-22 numbers.

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

They gotta G1-ify it so it fits with the rest of Legacy, I guess.  Seems reaction is pretty mixed, some people really like it, others feel like giving up Wyatt's style is like giving up the soul of the character and are lamenting that they're not getting actual new Animated figures. 

In this case, I think it's more that this isn't Prowl's head. Not just that it isn't curvy and elongated and 50% chin(actually, he has a surprisingly large chin for the blocky style), but the fin is far too large, the basic optics shape  is wrong, the expression is stern... it's like they used G1 Prowl's head and characterization to guide the design.

That said, he's recognizably Animated Prowl, which Bulkhead wasn't. I'm also VERY pleased that Hasbro's strict budget constraints didn't prevent them from including the two hubcap shuriken. I won't ignore that there's a lot right here.

...

Huh... Legacy Bulkhead's head was the only part that WAS right. Is there a "do the head or the everything-else" rule we don't know about?

Or maybe the head's wrong to make sure people have a reason to double-dip when they do samurai armor Prowl.

The only immediate complaint I have with Bike Prowl is the head.

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Of course, because those thermonuclear fusion bombs use a nuclear fission bomb as a trigger, they still release dangerous radioactive fallout despite the primary product of fusion being intense heat. 

Also, many had a uranium casing that would undergo fission when the fusion reaction pumped it full of neutrons, making them fission-fusion-fission bombs, which were very powerful for their size and also EXTREMELY dirty.

59 minutes ago, pengbuzz said:

Not to mention controllability (part of your point I think): with a fission system, control rods and coolant are necessary to prevent a meltdown. With fusion, it's simply cut off the ignition and fuel sources. This makes the likelihood of a catastrophic event pretty much impossible, as an out of control fusion reactor will basically turn itself off:

https://www.iaea.org/bulletin/safety-in-fusion

In short: no China Syndrome meltdowns.

The K-19 was one such example.

As for US Naval reactors: I've visited the USS Nautilus at the Submarine Museum in Groton, Connecticut. From the start, reactor safety and reliability were hallmarks of the program:

https://ussnautilus.org/the-nuclear-submarine/

In my visit, I was impressed with how compact and how well constructed the ship was for her time. They paid very rapt attention to crew safety and reliability of the machinery aboard. And that was in 1958!!!

 

I've been told one of the contractors explained that the reactor vessel didn't really need to be welded shut to prevent radiation leaks. And they asked him what he'd do if it was his son on the ship, and he said "I'd weld it shut". So they did.

US naval reactors aren't refuelable, but the seals are as good as can be made.

Meanwhile, I saw an anecdote earlier about US intelligence wondering what sort of advanced reactor the soviets were using to get such high speed out of some of their subs. When we finally got the answer, it was "same as the americans, but we made them bigger and lighter by omitting radiation shielding". And that... that's something.

Edit: Aaaaaaaaaaand that's apparently a well-known myth. While soviet nuclear vessels had no shortage of issues, there's no actual evidence they skimped on shielding.

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Uh... The THE HILL article I posted specifically mentioned weapons coming from the fusion research, not powering carriers or subs. The US military isn't an altruistic organization, lol.

A fusion reactor can POWER weapons, but is not itself readily weaponizable.

It might ENABLE some weapons technology, like various long-suffering railgun projects, if the power density winds up better for a naval fusion reactor than a fission one. Or if they're compact enough to safely install in, say, tanks.

It is also worth noting that US naval reactors have a pretty good safety record, but they are also expensive. Crew safety is at the top of the priority list, even when it makes the reactors larger, less efficient, or harder to service.

Soviet-designed naval reactors were lighter and cheaper, but there were several, umm, crew safety problems.

3 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

The US military is certainly encouraged! Oh boy, what could go wrong with that??

I mean, yeah. New power sources are always interesting.

Nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers are a thing today, of course.

5 hours ago, Big s said:

I think it just burns a hole in the toast so that you can drop an egg in the middle. Not sue where the middle of the bread ends up though 

Same place it does any other time you toast bread: inside the smoke detector.

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Man, I would love so much to see a masterpiece-level Dreadwing pair someday, either official or third party.

Did Dreadwing ever show up in the cartoon? There might be a problem if they only do extremely toon-accurate(from a specific viewing angle) versions.

One thing I really liked about the original Windblade toy that hasn't carried over to future iterations is the novelty of the robot being predominantly red and the jet being predominantly black.
This is, admittedly, possible because most of the jet hangs off her back in robot mode and most of the robot hangs off the bottom in jet mode. But that's just expected of a Transformers plane at this point, sadly.

Headmaster Windblade was a waste of a perfectly good opportunity, with it's chunky hard-edged design. The arms especially just make me mad with the massively thick upper arms and the dainty pencil-thin lower arms.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ARMORED CORE IS BACK!

1 hour ago, Big s said:

I don’t have the right streaming service to be able to verify myself, I think it’s on Paramount + but could be wrong. I didn’t see it on D+ or Hulu. Either way I’ve been hearing that they removed old Indy from all the episodes, so unfortunately they may not be referencing that version of him. 

https://screenrant.com/young-indiana-jones-chronicles-old-indy-cut-reason-canon/

Apparently that goes back to George Lucas being George Lucas.

6 hours ago, Chunky001 said:

It's been present in most of the recent moves with time travel. Avengers Endgame for example.

Here is what it is and how in theory it's the only way that can work:

https://theconversation.com/time-travel-could-be-possible-but-only-with-parallel-timelines-178776

The "Back To The Future" type of time travel is now a dead concept in the scientific community.

In the words of Spider-Man(PS1): "Sure it breaks the laws of physics, but so does everything else I do."

I enjoyed Crystal Skull... right up to the final scene where aliens warp in and steal the loot.