Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[TG Remix]

17 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Destroids were practically abandoned as a concept after the First Space War.  The only "new" models we've seen are modernizations and retrofits of pre-war 03 or 04 Series units like the Cheyenne II or Super Defender.  The only commonplace one seems to be the Cheyenne II, partially (possibly mainly) via the unarmed Destroid Work model and the scaled-down Workroid.

You'd think they'd be mostly abandoned, but not only we have said modernizations (which seemed to be popular in their own right,) but they appear as the occasional enemies in VF-X2. Initially I thought they were only used by Vinderance, a resistance group that used what they can get their hands on, who may or may not got potential backing from Max himself (that's probably the reason why their fleet is made up of the same type of Meltran ships the UN uses in there.) But come Mission 10A, Defenders, Phalanxs, and Tomahawks acted as the main defense force of the under construction Ceres Base; and it wasn't a place in the middle of the boonies, Vinderance specifically target it as it was a front line base in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter against external threats, as its wide-range jamming capabilities can divert attention away from Earth.

 

(Granted the near identical Mission 10B where you destroy the Vinderance Base not only has the same Destroids and Annabella Lasiodora as the boss, but looks exactly the same as an incomplete Macro-Training Base Ship we see in the Macross 7 fleet, but it's Macross, you can hand wave it somehow, if not for how the Latence route almost definitively didn't happen.)

 

My guess is that Destroids would be better suited as a economic solution to base and city defense compared to the more costly VFs since Frontier and Delta have them in those roles; though then again there were the VF-1s stationed at Apollo Base in Mars and the Diamond Fleet being relocated as City 7's defense, so who's to say?

[pengbuzz]

39 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

You'd think they'd be mostly abandoned, but not only we have said modernizations (which seemed to be popular in their own right,) but they appear as the occasional enemies in VF-X2. Initially I thought they were only used by Vinderance, a resistance group that used what they can get their hands on, who may or may not got potential backing from Max himself (that's probably the reason why their fleet is made up of the same type of Meltran ships the UN uses in there.) But come Mission 10A, Defenders, Phalanxs, and Tomahawks acted as the main defense force of the under construction Ceres Base; and it wasn't a place in the middle of the boonies, Vinderance specifically target it as it was a front line base in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter against external threats, as its wide-range jamming capabilities can divert attention away from Earth.

 

(Granted the near identical Mission 10B where you destroy the Vinderance Base not only has the same Destroids and Annabella Lasiodora as the boss, but looks exactly the same as an incomplete Macro-Training Base Ship we see in the Macross 7 fleet, but it's Macross, you can hand wave it somehow, if not for how the Latence route almost definitively didn't happen.)

 

My guess is that Destroids would be better suited as a economic solution to base and city defense compared to the more costly VFs since Frontier and Delta have them in those roles; though then again there were the VF-1s stationed at Apollo Base in Mars and the Diamond Fleet being relocated as City 7's defense, so who's to say?

I also wonder if surplus destroids were purchased by several municipalities and modified for other purposes?

*Imagines a destroid plowing the road after a snowstorm in December*

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, TG Remix said:

You'd think they'd be mostly abandoned, but not only we have said modernizations (which seemed to be popular in their own right,) but they appear as the occasional enemies in VF-X2. Initially I thought they were only used by Vinderance, a resistance group that used what they can get their hands on, who may or may not got potential backing from Max himself (that's probably the reason why their fleet is made up of the same type of Meltran ships the UN uses in there.) But come Mission 10A, Defenders, Phalanxs, and Tomahawks acted as the main defense force of the under construction Ceres Base; and it wasn't a place in the middle of the boonies, Vinderance specifically target it as it was a front line base in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter against external threats, as its wide-range jamming capabilities can divert attention away from Earth.

Thus far, only two attempts to modernize existing Destroid lines have been mentioned across not quite 60 years of in-story time.  Only one of which was successful (the Cheyenne II).

No mentions of any new model development for the New UN Forces or PMCs in all that time either and we know the military's decommissioning and selling off the First Space War machines to civilian users for conversion into heavy construction equipment.

WRT Ceres Base, I'd assume there are old, possibly formerly mothballed, Destroids stationed there because the base is incomplete and it's one of the few spacecraft large enough to have Destroids maneuver inside of it safely.  Presumably once the base comes online, they'd replace the Destroids with static point defense guns and missile launchers like all of the other New UN Forces ships and rely on Valkyries for local area defense.

 

4 hours ago, TG Remix said:

My guess is that Destroids would be better suited as a economic solution to base and city defense compared to the more costly VFs since Frontier and Delta have them in those roles; though then again there were the VF-1s stationed at Apollo Base in Mars and the Diamond Fleet being relocated as City 7's defense, so who's to say?

Given what we know about tactics in Macross, there's not a lot of value in basing defenses on a planet's surface.

The thousands of remaining Zentradi main fleets are the main threat at large in the galaxy.  Their usual MO is to blast their way to orbital supremacy and then simply flatten enemy surface targets from orbit like they did to Earth in the First Space War or to Spica III in Variable Fighter Master File.  That's why the New UN Spacy's defenses are organized around avoidance first and foremost using active and passive stealth technology, and then around keeping enemy forces away from orbital space with various defensive fleets and orbital defense stations.  

Destroids on the ground aren't much use against an enemy that's never going to come down there to fight.

That's almost certainly why the Al Shahal NUNS is only able to muster token resistance to the Var-affected NUNS Marines on the surface.  Their defenses are mainly up in orbit, so what they had on hand while the space defenses were occupied by the Aerial Knights was the Valkyrie units that'd been rotated to surface postings and the handful of air defense destroids that'd probably been configured for remote operation in static emplacements until things went south.  Maybe that's why they struggle to hit anything in the episode... hasty switchover from unmanned to manned operation and/or out-of-practice pilots.

 

3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I also wonder if surplus destroids were purchased by several municipalities and modified for other purposes?

*Imagines a destroid plowing the road after a snowstorm in December*

We see a fair bit of that in Macross 7's 15th episode, "A Girl's Jealousy".

In that episode, the citizens of City 7 bring out their privately owned Valkyries and Destroids for a carnival that's a low-key recruitment drive for an ad hoc defense force.  There are a number of privately owned VF-1s in the crowd, but also several Destroids that have been disarmed and modified as various kinds of construction equipment.  There's a Spartan that has both hands replaced by drills, a Defender with a vertical drilling rig fitted, a Tomahawk with what appears to be a massive pair of dozer blades, a Phalanx with a massive cement mixing drum and trowel, etc.

Of course, some of the Destroids ended up being used as literal target practice as seen in Macross Plus.

[SebastianP]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Given what we know about tactics in Macross, there's not a lot of value in basing defenses on a planet's surface.

The thousands of remaining Zentradi main fleets are the main threat at large in the galaxy.  Their usual MO is to blast their way to orbital supremacy and then simply flatten enemy surface targets from orbit like they did to Earth in the First Space War or to Spica III in Variable Fighter Master File.  That's why the New UN Spacy's defenses are organized around avoidance first and foremost using active and passive stealth technology, and then around keeping enemy forces away from orbital space with various defensive fleets and orbital defense stations.  

Destroids on the ground aren't much use against an enemy that's never going to come down there to fight.

Yeah, Destroids make more sense in the "defending against other ground units" role, but since Plus combat has gone more towards the "lightning VF raids", I do wish we'd have seen more destroids in Delta since they're noted to be cheaper to produce than VFs and Brisingr Cluster isn't giving off "super rich" vibes. 

Then again, while watching the Aerial knights fly face first into a crossfire set up by a bunch of Super Defenders and Cheyenne IIs and get deleted would have been amusing, it would have made for a short show if the enemies ran out in episode 3. ;D

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

We see a fair bit of that in Macross 7's 15th episode, "A Girl's Jealousy".

In that episode, the citizens of City 7 bring out their privately owned Valkyries and Destroids for a carnival that's a low-key recruitment drive for an ad hoc defense force.  There are a number of privately owned VF-1s in the crowd, but also several Destroids that have been disarmed and modified as various kinds of construction equipment.  There's a Spartan that has both hands replaced by drills, a Defender with a vertical drilling rig fitted, a Tomahawk with what appears to be a massive pair of dozer blades, a Phalanx with a massive cement mixing drum and trowel, etc.

Of course, some of the Destroids ended up being used as literal target practice as seen in Macross Plus.

Ix that the episode where a trio of old monster pilots accidentally blow up a building?

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Yeah, Destroids make more sense in the "defending against other ground units" role, but since Plus combat has gone more towards the "lightning VF raids", I do wish we'd have seen more destroids in Delta since they're noted to be cheaper to produce than VFs and Brisingr Cluster isn't giving off "super rich" vibes. 

Then again, while watching the Aerial knights fly face first into a crossfire set up by a bunch of Super Defenders and Cheyenne IIs and get deleted would have been amusing, it would have made for a short show if the enemies ran out in episode 3. ;D

Even in the original Macross series, the Destroids weren't able to do the jobs they were designed for because they ended up in space aboard the Macross instead of planetside on Earth waiting for an invasion that wasn't coming.

Macross Plus, Macross 7, and later titles simply did the logical thing and replaced 'em with more compact and efficient point defense guns and launchers.

Destroids may be cheaper than a Valkyrie, but they're also far more limited.  They're either groundbound or stuck in specially designed bunkers on the outside of a handful of rare ship classes that actually support them like the Macross Quarter-class or the Macross Elysion-type.  With most of Macross Delta's combat taking place either in space away from ships or in the air over population centers and Protoculture ruins, working them into the story would be difficult.  And it would take a certain je ne sais quoi out of the story if their antagonists were shot to bits by a ground-based anti-aircraft machinegun during their flashy maneuvers.

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Ix that the episode where a trio of old monster pilots accidentally blow up a building?

Yup, that's the one.

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even in the original Macross series, the Destroids weren't able to do the jobs they were designed for because they ended up in space aboard the Macross instead of planetside on Earth waiting for an invasion that wasn't coming.

Macross Plus, Macross 7, and later titles simply did the logical thing and replaced 'em with more compact and efficient point defense guns and launchers.

Destroids may be cheaper than a Valkyrie, but they're also far more limited.  They're either groundbound or stuck in specially designed bunkers on the outside of a handful of rare ship classes that actually support them like the Macross Quarter-class or the Macross Elysion-type.  With most of Macross Delta's combat taking place either in space away from ships or in the air over population centers and Protoculture ruins, working them into the story would be difficult.  And it would take a certain je ne sais quoi out of the story if their antagonists were shot to bits by a ground-based anti-aircraft machinegun during their flashy maneuvers.

I think the most use they ever came in was when Misa Hayase organized them in the bow of Daedalus for the Daedalus Attack.

 

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Yup, that's the one.

Good; my memory still works then.

[JB0]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

I think the most use they ever came in was when Misa Hayase organized them in the bow of Daedalus for the Daedalus Attack.

Also the final battle of the war, with the Macross Attack.

[SebastianP]

 

+9

[SebastianP]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Even in the original Macross series, the Destroids weren't able to do the jobs they were designed for because they ended up in space aboard the Macross instead of planetside on Earth waiting for an invasion that wasn't coming.

They did see plenty of use though - aside from standing around on the hull and potting battlepods that got close, as well as the Daedalus attack, they were also used in the city (both in the few fights that broke into the city, and for rubble cleaning and construction work. I distinctly remember it was a destroid that opened the way into the hull section where Minmei and Hikaru were sealed into.)

The only one of the original destroid designs I'd consider retiring without replacement is the Tomahawk, because it's a tank on legs that's supposed to fight other tanks on legs, and it never really had the mobility for what it needed to do.

The Defender was already upgraded into the Super Defender, filling a similar role to the Cheyenne.

The Phalanx, I could easily imagine having a use in the modern era, as missiles never go out of style. 

The Spartan I'd consider turning into a police mecha, Patlabor style, because mixed Macro/Miclone communities exist, as well as work destroids. Though I suppose the canon solution is Macronized Zentraedi cops. 

The Monster was also already upgraded to give it all the mobility the original lacked and then some. 

I would *consider*, maybe, tomahawking or phalanxing the Cheyenne chassis (i.e. giving it bigger, slower-firing guns, or large missile pods), 

Then again... given the vibe we see in the shows, it feels like only Zentraedi who crave the warrior lifestyle seem to sign up for ground combat duty and they'd be in Macro-scale mecha, which already have the mobility that the destroids lack. 

Edited Saturday at 09:06 AM by SebastianP

[pengbuzz]

I think one important role the Destroids served in the story was to point out how the "battlefield of yesterday" doesn't necessarily prepare you for the battlefield of tomorrow. 

UN Spacy developed the Destroids on the assumption (as previously pointed out by @Seto Kaiba on several occasions) that whoever came looking for the ASS-1/ Macross would be conducting a traditional ground war that would deal in holding territory. It never crystalized in anyone's thinking that when they came, it would be largely space-based. I also think Seto pointed out that as the reason there wasn't more of a focus on the fuel capacity of the VF-1's in space, as it was assumed most action would be in atmosphere.

 All of that said: I think if UN Spacy had a better idea of the actual "playing field", we'd have seen more fighters with a larger fuel supply (maybe something more akin to the VF-4 out the gate), perhaps less of an emphasis on transforming fighters, and a far greater emphasis on planetary defenses like the orbital network in Macross Plus.

[SebastianP]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

I think one important role the Destroids served in the story was to point out how the "battlefield of yesterday" doesn't necessarily prepare you for the battlefield of tomorrow. 

UN Spacy developed the Destroids on the assumption (as previously pointed out by @Seto Kaiba on several occasions) that whoever came looking for the ASS-1/ Macross would be conducting a traditional ground war that would deal in holding territory. It never crystalized in anyone's thinking that when they came, it would be largely space-based. I also think Seto pointed out that as the reason there wasn't more of a focus on the fuel capacity of the VF-1's in space, as it was assumed most action would be in atmosphere.

 All of that said: I think if UN Spacy had a better idea of the actual "playing field", we'd have seen more fighters with a larger fuel supply (maybe something more akin to the VF-4 out the gate), perhaps less of an emphasis on transforming fighters, and a far greater emphasis on planetary defenses like the orbital network in Macross Plus.

I'm not sure I accept this as written.

At the start of the project was very likely "let's develop alien-sized robots to fight the giant aliens", but you *also* have the Unification Wars going on at the same time, and it's kind of difficult to keep your development focus on equipment strictly to fight the *next* war while you're hip deep in an ongoing war already. It would rapidly have become "the enemy is developing giant robots, so we're developing giant robots to fight their giant robots!" among those not in the know about the aliens. 

Especially when the certainty that there will be a next war is kind of fading, because the aliens don't show for ten years.

So it's not even that the Destroids were developed for the battlefield of "yesterday", they were for the battlefield of "today", only midnight came out of nowhere.

Also note that the initial battle on South Ataria Island was exactly the kind of thing the destroids were supposed to fight - a ground invasion. The fold to Pluto and having to run the gauntlet to get back home was not in anyone's plans, the idea was to get to Lunar orbit and reinforce with more space units. 

Anyway, if the UN Spacy had convincing evidence of the actual playing field, I think so many bricks would have been shat that they could have constructed the whole grand cannon system out of them by 2005. Unification War? What Unification War? We have no time for wars, the ALIENS are coming, and there's billions of them!

Edit: Also, I've been playing around with a 3D model of Battle Frontier for a bit. We are unlikely to ever return anywhere near the Macross 7 fleet, but if there ever was anything set there in the future, how far off do you think I'd be with this interpretation of Battle 7?

 

 

Edited Saturday at 07:18 PM by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

They did see plenty of use though - aside from standing around on the hull and potting battlepods that got close, as well as the Daedalus attack, they were also used in the city (both in the few fights that broke into the city, and for rubble cleaning and construction work.

They do see a bit of use, but ultimately they're very very limited by the constraints of operating aboard a space warship instead of on the ground like they were intended.  

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I distinctly remember it was a destroid that opened the way into the hull section where Minmei and Hikaru were sealed into.)

Your memory is playing you false there, I'm afraid.

In the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, Hikaru and Minmay are found when an enemy missile with a dud warhead is mishandled and breaks through the deck above into the space they were trapped in. 

In the movie version, the emergency bulkhead just opens up.

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The Defender was already upgraded into the Super Defender, filling a similar role to the Cheyenne.

It was, yes... but it doesn't seem to have achieved any kind of widespread adoption as it is only used by the Macross Galaxy Corporate Army and only on a trial basis.  

In multiple versions of the Frontier storyline, the Macross Galaxy fleet has a penchant for keeping older designs (or even competitor designs) in service past their use-by date as a weird sort of flex in favor of their parent company's products.  In Macross the Ride they've tried to modernize the Defender and have a local spec of the VF-19C specifically to flex on Shinsei Industry by building a better VF-19.  In the Macross Frontier TV novelization, they're using modernized VF-9s and VF-17s in their forces.

Both cases, well... a basic beam CIWS system seems to have eaten their lunch thanks to lower cost and no ammo limitation.

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The Phalanx, I could easily imagine having a use in the modern era, as missiles never go out of style.

Same deal as the above, for most ships the same job can be done with a fixed launcher system.

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The Spartan I'd consider turning into a police mecha, Patlabor style, because mixed Macro/Miclone communities exist, as well as work destroids. Though I suppose the canon solution is Macronized Zentraedi cops. 

We've actually seen two dedicated police mecha in Macross 7. 

One is an armored car sort of machine that turns into something vaguely akin to a Zaku Tank armed with a bazooka, and the other is a twin ducted fan aircraft with arms and a deployable tricycle undercarriage for a body that can wield a gunpod.

Ironically, the reason for their existence is given as the number of surplus Valkyries and Destroids which were making their way into civilian hands.

Past 2030, though, giant Zentradi communities are quite rare.  They're banned on Earth, and most emigrant fleets don't permit Zentradi to live as giants for resource reasons.  The Frontier fleet is quite rare for allowing that.  One could call it a very substantial and very blatant display of the fleet's immense wealth.  

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

The Monster was also already upgraded to give it all the mobility the original lacked and then some. 

It stopped being a Destroid, though... it became a glass cannon variable bomber due to its structural issues.

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I would *consider*, maybe, tomahawking or phalanxing the Cheyenne chassis (i.e. giving it bigger, slower-firing guns, or large missile pods),

The Cheyenne II already has a pair of large particle beam cannons slung under its rotary cannons.

 

10 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Then again... given the vibe we see in the shows, it feels like only Zentraedi who crave the warrior lifestyle seem to sign up for ground combat duty and they'd be in Macro-scale mecha, which already have the mobility that the destroids lack. 

As of Frontier, they seem to end up in the New UN Spacy Marine Corps which has dedicated Zentradi units and seems to pull a lot of garrison duty to give them the structure they need in life.

 

 

23 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

At the start of the project was very likely "let's develop alien-sized robots to fight the giant aliens", but you *also* have the Unification Wars going on at the same time, and it's kind of difficult to keep your development focus on equipment strictly to fight the *next* war while you're hip deep in an ongoing war already. It would rapidly have become "the enemy is developing giant robots, so we're developing giant robots to fight their giant robots!" among those not in the know about the aliens. 

Eh... I'd call this half right?

The Earth UN Government and Earth UN Forces were pursuing development of weapons based on alien overtechnology to construct a planetary defense against a hypothetical alien invasion.  We know the requirements involved in development of the Battroid and Destroid were constructed around that premise rather than any possibility of use against other humans.  The UN Forces reluctantly pressed developmental and prototype weapons into service towards the end of the Unification Wars as a response to Anti-Unification forces obtaining and employing OTM-based weapons themselves, some of which were developed not just for fighting aliens but also with an eye towards practical use against humans.

After all, the UN Forces had a massive advantage in manpower and resources.  Most of the Unification Wars was little peacekeeping actions to suppress minor regional disputes along ethnic, sectarian, or regional lines and even when those groups started forming their own Alliance they were massively, massively outgunned most of the time.

The general public was already aware that aliens existed even before the Unification Wars started, so no such excuses would have been necessary.  The United Nations made the formal announcement that the existence of alien life had been confirmed in June 2000.  That announcement was quickly followed by the announcement that the nations of Earth had agreed to band together to form a world government.  The Unification Wars started the next month.  That the aliens used giant robotic weapons themselves was also not all that secret, since several combat pods were recovered from the wreck and extensively studied to reverse-engineer their technologies.  The main point that was secret was that those aliens were expected to be 10m tall.

 

23 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

Anyway, if the UN Spacy had convincing evidence of the actual playing field, I think so many bricks would have been shat that they could have constructed the whole grand cannon system out of them by 2005. Unification War? What Unification War? We have no time for wars, the ALIENS are coming, and there's billions of them!

They would probably have learned all they could, then chucked the ship back into space and sent it on a blind fold jump somewhere - anywhere - else in the hopes that the Zentradi would pass them by.

[pengbuzz]

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I'm not sure I accept this as written.

At the start of the project was very likely "let's develop alien-sized robots to fight the giant aliens", but you *also* have the Unification Wars going on at the same time, and it's kind of difficult to keep your development focus on equipment strictly to fight the *next* war while you're hip deep in an ongoing war already. It would rapidly have become "the enemy is developing giant robots, so we're developing giant robots to fight their giant robots!" among those not in the know about the aliens. 

Especially when the certainty that there will be a next war is kind of fading, because the aliens don't show for ten years.

So it's not even that the Destroids were developed for the battlefield of "yesterday", they were for the battlefield of "today", only midnight came out of nowhere.

Also note that the initial battle on South Ataria Island was exactly the kind of thing the destroids were supposed to fight - a ground invasion. The fold to Pluto and having to run the gauntlet to get back home was not in anyone's plans, the idea was to get to Lunar orbit and reinforce with more space units. 

Anyway, if the UN Spacy had convincing evidence of the actual playing field, I think so many bricks would have been shat that they could have constructed the whole grand cannon system out of them by 2005. Unification War? What Unification War? We have no time for wars, the ALIENS are coming, and there's billions of them!

 

That's fine; I'm not sure I accept your synopsis of my post as correct.

There's a reason they developed that technology, and the Anti-UEG wasn't primarily it:

Quote

In order to prevent worldwide panic, information on the existence of aliens was classified as top secret. An emergency summit between member nations of the United Nations is called, with the intent on unifying in order to defend humanity in the event of interplanetary warfare with hostile extraterrestrial life whose technology surpassed humanity.

By the year 2000, research into advanced overtechnology-based robotic weapons  ("Destroids" and "Battroids") begin in earnest. As various conflicts begin to erupt in the Middle East, the United Nations finally proposes a Unified Government, in order to draw the nations of Earth together. Hereafter, the United Nations is considered to be the provisional Unity Government. However, several nations who did not feel the UN had their best interests in mind oppose this measure, and form an alliance opposing the Unity Government. Conflicts between the Anti-UN forces and the Unity Government continued in earnest from January 2001 until December 2008, when the last remaining Anti-UN forces surrendered to Unity Government powers, concluding the Unification wars.

Source: https://macross.fandom.com/wiki/Unification_Wars

As for this comment:

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

So it's not even that the Destroids were developed for the battlefield of "yesterday", they were for the battlefield of "today", only midnight came out of nowhere.

As the saying goes: "Generals always fight the last war"; in UN Spacy's case, the generals plans were for the warfare they thought would come, based on the wars they had fought. They didn't have in mind that the next one would be a space-based war.

 

4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Edit: Also, I've been playing around with a 3D model of Battle Frontier for a bit. We are unlikely to ever return anywhere near the Macross 7 fleet, but if there ever was anything set there in the future, how far off do you think I'd be with this interpretation of Battle 7?

I don't see how a desaturated paint job makes much difference, other than that several years later, someone forgot to repaint the ships.

[JB0]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

As the saying goes: "Generals always fight the last war"; in UN Spacy's case, the generals plans were for the warfare they thought would come, based on the wars they had fought. They didn't have in mind that the next one would be a space-based war.

More to the point, they assumed that any possible war would be over territory and resources. These unknown aliens had no beef with humanity, they would be coming to reclaim their missing starship or to lay claim to the Solar System's resources. This makes sense if you are not specifically aware that the zentradi fleets are roving around looking for "the enemy" with no real strategic goals, like the planet eater in that one Star Trek episode.

No one expected "you are an existential threat that must be erased from existence", because there was no reason to expect it.

 

 

 

And it should be noted that for a time, an alliance seemed viable. The zentradi were very surprised by the capabilities demonstrated by people who very much weren't the enemy they were hunting. They wanted to get busted hardware fixed and replaced, and a new supply of reaction weapons. Humans could do both of those things. The humans, meanwhile, wanted to not be exterminated like space roaches. It seems like a small ask in exchange.

...

And then the culture virus hit the zentradi ranks, causing a rapid and near-total collapse of discipline, the chain of command, and essentially destruction of zentradi society. NOW humanity is not a potential ally, they're the most dangerous thing the zentradi have seen in several millennia. 

[SebastianP]

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I don't see how a desaturated paint job makes much difference, other than that several years later, someone forgot to repaint the ships.

Um....

In episode 1 of Macross 7, our first look at the exterior of Battle 7 looks like this:

Notice that the ship is gray, with pale yellow cheek pads, There's two or three different angles of this area, from when Diamond Force is launching. All of them show this muted palette. So, when I was making a "realistic", more warship-like palette for Battle 7,  I picked my colors right out of these scenes with a color picker tool. 

And then I noticed something strange as I was frame-by-framing my way through Zettai Live: the Gigasion had this exact color palette. Light gray, slightly desaturated reds and blues, and a quite pale yellow, even in the brightest lit scenes. 

So, kindly don't complain about the *colors*. What I was asking was, do you think they'd retcon the Battle 7 to be the same overall design as Battle Frontier? Or would they try to make an anime-accurate 3D model of the old ship instead?

Edit: I'm noticing now that this shot is strange, because it implies the bridge block of the Battle 7 has been slid all the way back down the leg of the ship in order for the end of the angled flight deck to be in the foreground with the bridge block behind it. 

11 minutes ago, JB0 said:

More to the point, they assumed that any possible war would be over territory and resources. These unknown aliens had no beef with humanity, they would be coming to reclaim their missing starship or to lay claim to the Solar System's resources. This makes sense if you are not specifically aware that the zentradi fleets are roving around looking for "the enemy" with no real strategic goals, like the planet eater in that one Star Trek episode.

No one expected "you are an existential threat that must be erased from existence", because there was no reason to expect it.

"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilizations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop."

— Iain M. Banks, Excession

 

The Zentraedi were an Outside Context Problem for the Earths governments. It just so happened that Minmei turned out to be an Outside Context Problem for the Zentraedi. 

Edited Sunday at 02:43 AM by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Edit: Also, I've been playing around with a 3D model of Battle Frontier for a bit. We are unlikely to ever return anywhere near the Macross 7 fleet, but if there ever was anything set there in the future, how far off do you think I'd be with this interpretation of Battle 7?

Should the second Battle 7 ever put in an appearance in a future animated Macross story, I kind of suspect they will reuse the Battle Frontier CG model for it the same way that they reused Battle Galaxy for the Battle Astraea but keep the more vibrant color scheme used in a lot of the line art.

It would be nice if they went back and made an accurate-to-the-90's-animation Battle 7 model, but that's probably more effort than they'd be willing to put in for what would surely be a cameo appearance at most.  The Macross 7 fleet has put in a minor cameo before, but only in the novelization of Macross Frontier.

[pengbuzz]

6 hours ago, SebastianP said:

Um....

In episode 1 of Macross 7, our first look at the exterior of Battle 7 looks like this:

Notice that the ship is gray, with pale yellow cheek pads, There's two or three different angles of this area, from when Diamond Force is launching. All of them show this muted palette. So, when I was making a "realistic", more warship-like palette for Battle 7,  I picked my colors right out of these scenes with a color picker tool. 

And then I noticed something strange as I was frame-by-framing my way through Zettai Live: the Gigasion had this exact color palette. Light gray, slightly desaturated reds and blues, and a quite pale yellow, even in the brightest lit scenes. 

So, kindly don't complain about the *colors*. What I was asking was, do you think they'd retcon the Battle 7 to be the same overall design as Battle Frontier? Or would they try to make an anime-accurate 3D model of the old ship instead?

 

Kindly... don't complain about someone's opinion when you ask for it:

13 hours ago, SebastianP said:

We are unlikely to ever return anywhere near the Macross 7 fleet, but if there ever was anything set there in the future, how far off do you think I'd be with this interpretation of Battle 7?

 

 

My comment of "I don't see how a desaturated paint job makes much difference, other than that several years later, someone forgot to repaint the ships." is my reply to your question of "how far off do you think I'd be with this interpretation of Battle 7?" I simply do not see a desaturated paint job as making any remarkable difference in the interpretation.

You threw a pic of your work up without much context other than asking "how far off" would it be; that invites people to tell you what they think of it in those terms. I decided it didn't make much difference in my opinion and replied as such. Maybe if you had included the other photos with the same explanation you included in your rebuttal to me, it would have given me more info to consider while deciding what I thought of it. Instead, it came across as "I gotcha!! Now stop picking on me!!", and I find that intellectually dishonest.

Edited Sunday at 08:58 AM by pengbuzz

[SebastianP]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

You threw a pic of your work up without much context other than asking "how far off" would it be; that invites people to tell you what they think of it in those terms. I decided it didn't make much difference in my opinion and replied as such. Maybe if you had included the other photos with the same explanation you included in your rebuttal to me, it would have given me more info to consider while deciding what I thought of it. Instead, it came across as "I gotcha!! Now stop picking on me!!", and I find that intellectually dishonest.

I honestly didn't think I'd need to prove my *color selection*, given that this is the palette used on the Gigasion (which is basically a stand-in for Battle 7 given who's captaining it) so I didn't think to put in a comparison screenshot from the anime until you complained. I wasn't planning on a gotcha. (honestly the full saturation/brightness color scheme looks weird and cartoony on big ships in 3D when put next to the more muted "realistic" colors of the ships in Frontier/Delta, so to me it was just obvious to use the more muted colors.)

But I guess what I was supposed to read out of that is that other than the color scheme, you think they would go for making the Battle 7 the same design as Battle Frontier?

 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Should the second Battle 7 ever put in an appearance in a future animated Macross story, I kind of suspect they will reuse the Battle Frontier CG model for it the same way that they reused Battle Galaxy for the Battle Astraea but keep the more vibrant color scheme used in a lot of the line art.

It would be nice if they went back and made an accurate-to-the-90's-animation Battle 7 model, but that's probably more effort than they'd be willing to put in for what would surely be a cameo appearance at most.  The Macross 7 fleet has put in a minor cameo before, but only in the novelization of Macross Frontier.

As mentioned, the more vibrant colors from SDF-1 TV and Battle 7 look *strange* next to the more faded, muted ships of Frontier, Delta, and even DYRL. They're almost eye-searingly bright in a lineup. Which is why I think they went with the colors they did for Gigasion, to be honest. There's something about the shading style used in the 3D macross shows that does not particularly work well with large white objects that aren't meant to be the instant focus of the scene (like Alto's VF-25 or Delta squadron's VF-31s).

I've been thinking about making actual model edits to make the ship more like the Battle 7 - removing the shoulder turrets is easy. Building a new bridge foundation with room for the Diamond Force launchers instead of the turrets is more difficult, but not as bad as trying to make those fit on the model I have of the Battle 7 that's based on the overall lineart. (Also, if you want to talk "animation errors", holy heck the Battle 7 is probably the least consistently drawn ship in the setting. Never mind parts of it constantly changing colors, the proportions are different from basically every angle... Which is, I think, one of the reasons why the Battle 25 model is so different despite being based on the same concept. They couldn't *make* an accurate Battle 7 because the references don't match....)

Edited Sunday at 10:50 AM by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

6 hours ago, SebastianP said:

As mentioned, the more vibrant colors from SDF-1 TV and Battle 7 look *strange* next to the more faded, muted ships of Frontier, Delta, and even DYRL. They're almost eye-searingly bright in a lineup. Which is why I think they went with the colors they did for Gigasion, to be honest.

I'd suspect they went with the more subdued palette for the Macross Gigasion because she's supposed to be a newer ship.

After all, when they reference older eras in Macross media they often keep the original paint jobs or reference them directly.  Such as the bright red VF-1X++ Ranka uses for her performance of "Love is a Dogfight" that hearkens back to Basara's Fire Valkyrie, or the fairly bright blue Max uses for his YF-29.  Macross the Ride is practically a master class when it comes to "how bright can we go?".  Macross 30, of course, faithfully preserves a lot of the older paintjobs.  Even Master File suggests that legacy units like Macross 7's Emerald Force faithfully preserved their brightly colored paintjobs into the 2060s.  Bogue's bright red Sv-262 in the second Delta movie is arguably the most recent case.

 

6 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I've been thinking about making actual model edits to make the ship more like the Battle 7 - removing the shoulder turrets is easy. Building a new bridge foundation with room for the Diamond Force launchers instead of the turrets is more difficult, but not as bad as trying to make those fit on the model I have of the Battle 7 that's based on the overall lineart. (Also, if you want to talk "animation errors", holy heck the Battle 7 is probably the least consistently drawn ship in the setting. Never mind parts of it constantly changing colors, the proportions are different from basically every angle... Which is, I think, one of the reasons why the Battle 25 model is so different despite being based on the same concept. They couldn't *make* an accurate Battle 7 because the references don't match....)

One important thing to remember is that the animators working on a Macross series are not going to go back and analyze old animation in minute detail the way you have.  They're not going to bother with it at all, in all likelihood.  Even if they did, they would almost certainly not care at all about the kind of minor inconsistencies you've been analyzing because those kinds of minor errors just the cost of doing business to them.  Particularly back in the era of 100% hand-drawn animation.  Deadlines are tight, budgets are tighter, and "looks good" is often "good enough".

What they would do is go straight to the animation model reference sheets - the line art and color keys intended as guidance for the animation staff - and use those to draw/model and color the design.  It's unlikely they would bother to consult any other source as those sheets are the primary guidance for animators.

The 3D modeled Battle-class ships we see in more recent Macross stories like the Battle Frontier, Battle Galaxy, and Battle Astraea look different from the Battle 7 because they are part of a newer and more advanced generation of Battle-class ships.  That idea wasn't dreamed up for Macross Frontier, either.  That actually goes back to Macross VF-X2, around nine years before Macross Frontier came out.  The Battle-class Macross 13 (Battle 13) that is Latence's final weapon is said to be the first of a new generation of Battle-class ships with more advanced technology than those before it.  (This point is important enough that it's actually written directly on the line art itself as well as provided in-story.)  The Battle Frontier, Battle Galaxy, and Battle Astraea are even newer models than that, and all three of those have been heavily remodeled to suit the needs of their respective forces as well.  

[pengbuzz]

15 hours ago, SebastianP said:

I honestly didn't think I'd need to prove my *color selection*, given that this is the palette used on the Gigasion (which is basically a stand-in for Battle 7 given who's captaining it) so I didn't think to put in a comparison screenshot from the anime until you complained. I wasn't planning on a gotcha. (honestly the full saturation/brightness color scheme looks weird and cartoony on big ships in 3D when put next to the more muted "realistic" colors of the ships in Frontier/Delta, so to me it was just obvious to use the more muted colors.)

But I guess what I was supposed to read out of that is that other than the color scheme, you think they would go for making the Battle 7 the same design as Battle Frontier?

No, I just said I didn't see how it made a difference, and that--

Tell you what: I'll solve this for you. I just put you on ignore, so that way you don't have to worry about me commenting on any of your posts.

My best friend was just diagnosed with Glioblastoma; I don't need this crap today.

Departing topic.

 

[SebastianP]

On 6/15/2025 at 9:09 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd suspect they went with the more subdued palette for the Macross Gigasion because she's supposed to be a newer ship.

After all, when they reference older eras in Macross media they often keep the original paint jobs or reference them directly.  Such as the bright red VF-1X++ Ranka uses for her performance of "Love is a Dogfight" that hearkens back to Basara's Fire Valkyrie, or the fairly bright blue Max uses for his YF-29.  Macross the Ride is practically a master class when it comes to "how bright can we go?".  Macross 30, of course, faithfully preserves a lot of the older paintjobs.  Even Master File suggests that legacy units like Macross 7's Emerald Force faithfully preserved their brightly colored paintjobs into the 2060s.  Bogue's bright red Sv-262 in the second Delta movie is arguably the most recent case.

OK, so this whole post you're mostly making Watsonian, in-universe, arguments for why things were changed. I have been and will be making Doylist, out-of-universe ones. 

Both can be true at the same time.

To start off - I did point out that Gigasion *is* referencing Battle 7 directly. It's just the *original palette* version of Battle 7 from episodes 1 through 15, where the ship was still just a big ship.  

I can think of several Doylist reasons to do this. 

One is that the 3D-era ships across the board have been trying look more realistic, and the bright Gundam colors aren't especially realistic on a warship, especially when every other warship seen across two TV shows and four movies have been more subdued in color. Also, for a good long while, we had both Hollywood and video games going "the less saturated it is the more realistic it is", and this era overlaps with Frontier and Delta. 

One is that there is a concept called scale effect - a visual psychology trick that makes the brain more accepting of something being much larger based on the palette. Basically, the human brain doesn't want to accept that something that big can be that saturated in color, so you mix some white or gray into the color it's actually supposed to be to trick the brain. I learned of the concept from plastic modelling forums, where all the really advanced modelers swear by it, and I think because digital VFX evolved from physical VFX, the same trick may be taught in formal schooling for that, but I don't have any so I can't say for certain.

One is that a bright white giant robot would overshadow any scene it's in in the movie, even if it's far in the background. As animated, Gigasion is obviously bright enough to be the main character of the scenes where it's supposed to be, but with the even brighter colors from Macross 7, it would be hard to focus on the VFs because of the great big flashbang of white in the background. (I think this is the same reason why the Battle 7 was gray for the first 15 episodes - a lot of the time, we were mostly seeing Diamond Force launching from it, and if the ship had been white it would have been overpowering. I will have to look at later episodes of Macross 7 to see if they actually updated the launching scenes with the brighter palette later).

Also, in 3D it's much more difficult to change the palette between shots without people noticing, so pulling the trick of "gray up close, white from afar" is not as viable as it was in the cel animation days. 

As for the VFs - I can easily justify in a Doylist manner why very brightly colored Variable Fighters are still perfectly realistic, by pointing out that real life fighter aircraft since Manfred von Richthofen's Fokker Dreidecker, all the way to the JSDF's Itasha F-15s, have indeed been painted in basically every color imaginable, and even to this day, the US Navy's "Wing King" fighters fly combat missions painted up in high visibility throwback schemes when the carrier's command staff allows them. (VFs also aren't big enough to be affected by the Scale Effect, not by comparison, but they're also so large that they're going to be mostly out of frame or self-shadowing in any scene where you have a *character* needing the focus, so they also won't be as big of a visual flashbang as a bright white ship against a black background is). 

On 6/15/2025 at 9:09 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

One important thing to remember is that the animators working on a Macross series are not going to go back and analyze old animation in minute detail the way you have.  They're not going to bother with it at all, in all likelihood.  Even if they did, they would almost certainly not care at all about the kind of minor inconsistencies you've been analyzing because those kinds of minor errors just the cost of doing business to them.  Particularly back in the era of 100% hand-drawn animation.  Deadlines are tight, budgets are tighter, and "looks good" is often "good enough".

I can buy this for Macross 7, because unless the animators were super fans who owned the original show on physical media, or the physical media was provided to them by the production company for research, it would be really quite difficult in 1994 to find the original show to research. Not that it was even relevant because about the only thing reused from previous productions on a regular basis was Exsedol's character design. Basically no point to go back and rewatch the old show to see how things were supposed to work if you're not using anything from it.

For Macross Frontier, the situation is different. Aside from physical media being more available, by this point not only did you have digital distribution, but you could find whole episodes on Youtube, and I'm fairly certain there was a decent selection of clips on Nico-Nico as well. Could, did, or should the animators have done any research on Macross 7 this way? I have no idea. But it was a vastly simpler proposition to do so than when Macross 7 was made.

Also, in the 3D era, instead of "stock footage" where they just toss a ready made clip that was hand drawn with all sorts of wonky proportions every couple of minutes, what happens is that you use a scene script and then re-render it with relevant changes. This scene script will have the relative scales of all the models used available (just click on a fighter or ship to see what scale it is), and if the modelers are smart, everything will be in "true" scale all along so you don't have to worry about it. These scene files were kept around for a long, long time, because some of the ones from Frontier are re-used in Delta, with changes making it obvious that they're not just composited but actually re-rendered. 

As for 2D animation errors, I don't really bother thinking about most of them. It's only when they're so big that there's something in my brain that goes "that can't be right", like shooting fighters out of the torpedo tubes of a 250 meter ship...

To me, animation errors are wonky proportions or visual glitches that I can gloss over as unimportant. That one had an entire episode based around it... (but we were done with this particular conversation a week ago).

On 6/15/2025 at 9:09 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

What they would do is go straight to the animation model reference sheets - the line art and color keys intended as guidance for the animation staff - and use those to draw/model and color the design.  It's unlikely they would bother to consult any other source as those sheets are the primary guidance for animators.

OK. Here's the thing - I tried to do this, a long time ago. I tried to build a Macross 7 based on the animation reference drawings. It didn't go well, because there's a lot of parts that the drawings we have available do not cover (there's probably more drawings available to the actual animators though); but also because, as drawings, they turned out not to be completely proportional to each other. Notably, the ship form of Battle 7 is thinner than the robot form. Build the robot like the ship, and you get very skinny legs and arms. Build the ship like the robot, and you get something with proportions much more like Battle Frontier. This is why I was saying that I'm thinking they tried, and gave it up as impossible and started over, using only the transformation skeleton.

Note that even then, the Battle Frontier doesn't actually have a perfect transformation - the gun is too long, and even with the stock collapsed, it clips into the pelvis while in ship form. This may be one of the reasons why they've never made a ship-form Battle class model kit - it's fairly obvious if you flip it upside down that there's clipping going on. (This goes for the game model used in the Frontier games, but it's very obvious that the game studio had access to the shooting models because as mentioned, they repeat some of the weirder animator's choices verbatim, like the ship name "Maiduru" being hard-painted into the texture for the Guantanamo model)

(This is not a complaint or a demand that anyone fix the problem, just an observation that the model is not perfect).

On 6/15/2025 at 9:09 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The 3D modeled Battle-class ships we see in more recent Macross stories like the Battle Frontier, Battle Galaxy, and Battle Astraea look different from the Battle 7 because they are part of a newer and more advanced generation of Battle-class ships.  That idea wasn't dreamed up for Macross Frontier, either.  That actually goes back to Macross VF-X2, around nine years before Macross Frontier came out.  The Battle-class Macross 13 (Battle 13) that is Latence's final weapon is said to be the first of a new generation of Battle-class ships with more advanced technology than those before it.  (This point is important enough that it's actually written directly on the line art itself as well as provided in-story.)  The Battle Frontier, Battle Galaxy, and Battle Astraea are even newer models than that, and all three of those have been heavily remodeled to suit the needs of their respective forces as well.  

This is an argument that makes a lot of sense from the Watsonian perspective, and from the perspective of a superfan who owns or at least has access to all the reference books. Remember that the Macross Chronicle did not exist at this time, so information relating to VF-X2 was *legally* available only to people who had the game and the reference book for it. 

Here in the West, information relevant to Macross 13 and VF-X2 was circulated by fans who bought the game and book, then translated the information, and shared it online. Because many of us western fans had no access to *any* of the books, we went to the fan-created indexes like M3 or Sketchley's, and absorbed this information along with everything else. 

But... did it work the same way in Japan? I'm thinking that it is way more common for the "average" western Macross fan to have found out about Macross 13, because there basically aren't any "casual" Macross fans due to what a PITA it is to get the anime; than it is for an average Japanese Macross fan, ca 2008, to know much about it. 

Honest question, by the way. I know there were obviously hardcore Macross fans in Japan that were at least as well informed as us (probably more, given that they can read the books without help), but there's something that gets me thinking that VF-X2 was paradoxically more obscure in Japan. 

My Doylist reasoning, to re-iterate, is that even if you wanted to make an accurate transforming 3D model of the Battle 7 you wouldn't be able to without just as much pixie dust as in Macross 7, and in textured 3D due to having textures on all the parts, the pixie dust would be more obvious. And the Battle Frontier looks a lot more like someone *tried* to do a Battle 7 first, than someone who started making a design evolved from Battle 7 through Battle 13. 

(Also, did we ever get a Watsonian explanation for the very obvious model reuse where Astrea is literally Galaxy with added parts? Someone explained that in one of the Another Century's Episode games, they basically flat out went "yeah, it's actually the same ship", but that's not Macross canon. The Doylist reason is obviously "crap, we forgot to make new textures!")

Edited 10 hours ago by SebastianP

[Seto Kaiba]

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

OK, so this whole post you're mostly making Watsonian, in-universe, arguments for why things were changed. I have been and will be making Doylist, out-of-universe ones. 

Both can be true at the same time.

This is true, but in all frankness I believe you're overthinking things here a bit.

 

 

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

To start off - I did point out that Gigasion *is* referencing Battle 7 directly. It's just the *original palette* version of Battle 7 from episodes 1 through 15, where the ship was still just a big ship.  

I can think of several Doylist reasons to do this. 

One is that the 3D-era ships across the board have been trying look more realistic, and the bright Gundam colors aren't especially realistic on a warship, especially when every other warship seen across two TV shows and four movies have been more subdued in color. Also, for a good long while, we had both Hollywood and video games going "the less saturated it is the more realistic it is", and this era overlaps with Frontier and Delta. 

One is that there is a concept called scale effect - a visual psychology trick that makes the brain more accepting of something being much larger based on the palette. Basically, the human brain doesn't want to accept that something that big can be that saturated in color, so you mix some white or gray into the color it's actually supposed to be to trick the brain. I learned of the concept from plastic modelling forums, where all the really advanced modelers swear by it, and I think because digital VFX evolved from physical VFX, the same trick may be taught in formal schooling for that, but I don't have any so I can't say for certain.

One is that a bright white giant robot would overshadow any scene it's in in the movie, even if it's far in the background. As animated, Gigasion is obviously bright enough to be the main character of the scenes where it's supposed to be, but with the even brighter colors from Macross 7, it would be hard to focus on the VFs because of the great big flashbang of white in the background. (I think this is the same reason why the Battle 7 was gray for the first 15 episodes - a lot of the time, we were mostly seeing Diamond Force launching from it, and if the ship had been white it would have been overpowering. I will have to look at later episodes of Macross 7 to see if they actually updated the launching scenes with the brighter palette later).

Also, in 3D it's much more difficult to change the palette between shots without people noticing, so pulling the trick of "gray up close, white from afar" is not as viable as it was in the cel animation days. 

Personally, I don't buy the argument that dingy and desaturated means "realistic".  I lived through the tyranny of "realistic means it looks like you're viewing it through a used coffee filter" in gaming and other entertainment and I want nothing further to do with it.

In practice, it doesn't really matter if you paint your space warship bright and garish colors or flat gunship grey because without an external light source shining brightly on the hull you're only ever going to see it illuminated dimly by reflected light from large nearby objects (e.g. planets, moons) or illuminated only by its own running lights like the Macross at the very start of DYRL?.  That's different in atmosphere, but in atmosphere people are going to notice the giant F-off kilometers and a half long super-carrier no matter what color it's painted.  If realism were that important, Battle Galaxy wouldn't be painted magenta.

Likewise, I don't think there's any concern with the Battle 7 potentially overshadowing other ships when it's on screen.  It's going to do that no matter how you paint it, because it's simply the biggest damn thing in frame 99% of the time.  It might be an issue if you had multiple Battle-class ships in frame, but only if it's not the "hero" one.

I think there's a much simpler explanation that works on both Watsonian and Doylist levels: stylistic preferences change with time.

Battle 7's comparatively bright and colorful design is representative of mid-90's anime, but can also be said to be the preference of the 37th Fleet at the time it launched in 2038.  The Macross Gigasion was designed decades later in both Doylist and Watsonian terms, so naturally it more closely reflects the tastes of the period to which it belongs.

My favorite example of this principle in action is the TNG episode "Relics" and the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations".  They don't retcon the rather dated stylistic choices or bright, garish colors of Star Trek's Original Series from the 60's into something more in line with the more subdued neutral tones of the 90's shows, they simply acknowledge that (both in-universe and out) that was The Style At The Time and that stylistic preferences changed as time passed.

Macross Frontier and Macross FB7 both flirt with the idea a bit, but not to the same extent.

 

 

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

For Macross Frontier, the situation is different. Aside from physical media being more available, by this point not only did you have digital distribution, but you could find whole episodes on Youtube, and I'm fairly certain there was a decent selection of clips on Nico-Nico as well. Could, did, or should the animators have done any research on Macross 7 this way? I have no idea. But it was a vastly simpler proposition to do so than when Macross 7 was made.

There is no reason for anyone to do that, though.

Satelight's animators working on Macross Frontier and Macross Delta weren't superfans working on a fan film.  They were professionals there to do a job.  They have no reason at all to care about what was done in prior shows.  They have a stack of animation model reference sheets, storyboards, and screenplays that spell out what to draw, how to draw it, and when.  All the decisions about how things should look or what things should be in the story happen way before anything gets to them.  That's the job of the various designers who work on development of the project.  

If an older design is being brought back and refreshed, they don't need to go back and look at the old animation because they have the animation model reference to work from.  The master key to the art design.  They can make any necessary tweaks using that as a starting point without the need to waste tens of hours trawling through old VHS tapes and DVDs.

 

 

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

OK. Here's the thing - I tried to do this, a long time ago. I tried to build a Macross 7 based on the animation reference drawings. It didn't go well, [...]

Not wishing to cause offense, but your results are not necessarily indicative of the outcomes that a professional animator would produce.

And yes, many transforming designs involve a certain amount of "anime magic".  It's just the cost of doing business.

 

 

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

This is an argument that makes a lot of sense from the Watsonian perspective, and from the perspective of a superfan who owns or at least has access to all the reference books. Remember that the Macross Chronicle did not exist at this time, so information relating to VF-X2 was *legally* available only to people who had the game and the reference book for it. 

Here in the West, information relevant to Macross 13 and VF-X2 was circulated by fans who bought the game and book, then translated the information, and shared it online. Because many of us western fans had no access to *any* of the books, we went to the fan-created indexes like M3 or Sketchley's, and absorbed this information along with everything else. 

But... did it work the same way in Japan? I'm thinking that it is way more common for the "average" western Macross fan to have found out about Macross 13, because there basically aren't any "casual" Macross fans due to what a PITA it is to get the anime; than it is for an average Japanese Macross fan, ca 2008, to know much about it. 

Honest question, by the way. I know there were obviously hardcore Macross fans in Japan that were at least as well informed as us (probably more, given that they can read the books without help), but there's something that gets me thinking that VF-X2 was paradoxically more obscure in Japan. 

My Doylist reasoning, to re-iterate, is that even if you wanted to make an accurate transforming 3D model of the Battle 7 you wouldn't be able to without just as much pixie dust as in Macross 7, and in textured 3D due to having textures on all the parts, the pixie dust would be more obvious. And the Battle Frontier looks a lot more like someone *tried* to do a Battle 7 first, than someone who started making a design evolved from Battle 7 through Battle 13. 

As far as I know, sales figures for Macross VF-X2 have not been made public.

The game's events have been referenced so often by so many different Macross works from Macross Frontier onward that I can only assume it did pretty well for itself back in 1999 and in that limited 2002 re-release.  Enough to justify Macross Frontier and Macross Delta and their spinoff works tying into it as heavily as they have.  It's been referenced in anime, other games, light novels, audio dramas, and even model kits.

Regardless, I don't think the measure of success of Macross VF-X2 necessarily means anything WRT the Doylist explanation... a simple desire to make the new Battle-class in the new story visually distinct.  Macross VF-X2's dev team had a story that called for an "evil" Battle-class, so they took the basic design and made it bulkier, spikier, redesigned the bridge to look more menacing, and gave the whole thing a darker and more ominous-looking paintjob of purples and dark greys.  Similarly, when the time came to make Macross Frontier in the mid-2000s, the story called for a "hero" Battle-class and a "villain" Battle-class, so they needed to update the Battle-class design to mesh with the 2000's visual aesthetic and to produce a single base design they could customize to make the heroic Battle Frontier and the villainous Battle Galaxy.

 

22 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

(Also, did we ever get a Watsonian explanation for the very obvious model reuse where Astrea is literally Galaxy with added parts? Someone explained that in one of the Another Century's Episode games, they basically flat out went "yeah, it's actually the same ship", but that's not Macross canon. The Doylist reason is obviously "crap, we forgot to make new textures!")

Nope... and I am intensely annoyed about it.

The obvious Doylist explanation is that it's CG model reuse and they forgot to remove or change the hull number while they were adding bits to it.

When it comes to a Watsonian explanation, we're stuck with a lot of assumptions.  The obvious answer is that the Battle Astraea is another ship from the same design generation as the Battle Galaxy and/or that it was upgraded with some of the same kind of technology used in Battle Galaxy when Cromwell's crew disappeared with it and had the Epsilon Foundation refit it.  Why its hull number is the same as Battle Galaxy's... that's anyone's guess.

 

[SebastianP]

4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Not wishing to cause offense, but your results are not necessarily indicative of the outcomes that a professional animator would produce.

And yes, many transforming designs involve a certain amount of "anime magic".  It's just the cost of doing business.

 

No offense taken. I was an even more ignorant beginner at the time than I am now. But much better modelers than me have tried and they end up with similar results - either a fatter spaceship or a too skinny robot. 

Also - it is mark of Kawamori's skill that his designs require so little anime magic to actually work. The man is an actual wizard, creating so many designs that can actually be turned into toys and perfectly transform without any magic. 

10 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

The game's events have been referenced so often by so many different Macross works from Macross Frontier onward that I can only assume it did pretty well for itself back in 1999 and in that limited 2002 re-release.  Enough to justify Macross Frontier and Macross Delta and their spinoff works tying into it as heavily as they have.  It's been referenced in anime, other games, light novels, audio dramas, and even model kits.

I'm having a big empty head moment here, because as far as I remember, none of the anime actually *does* directly reference the events of the VF-X2 game in any obvious way. 

I haven't had time to check all of Frontier because there's so many different political discussions spread out across the show, but I don't remember Vindirance or Lactence, or the 2050 coup attempt, being brought up at all, anywhere in any anime. If you know that it happened, you can see its *effects* everywhere, but if you didn't know about it you'd just gloss over it entirely so it feels almost like sneaky fanservice. 

(I did verify the one instance in Delta where it was likely to have come up in discussion, which was Berger's exposition in episode 19, but he goes from Macross 7 to Macross Frontier and entirely skips the 2050 coup attempt). 

And the only things I remember relating to VF-X2 in Macross 30 is that there were skins for the Ravens in there, for the VF-11 and VF-19 if I recall correctly. There may have been something in the descriptions for those skins, but I never bothered pulling up my camera to read those. 

[Seto Kaiba]

26 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

No offense taken. I was an even more ignorant beginner at the time than I am now. But much better modelers than me have tried and they end up with similar results - either a fatter spaceship or a too skinny robot. 

Also - it is mark of Kawamori's skill that his designs require so little anime magic to actually work. The man is an actual wizard, creating so many designs that can actually be turned into toys and perfectly transform without any magic. 

Kawamori really is an incredible designer.  It takes an astonishing amount of talent to come up with a transformation that's not only believable but can be translated to a physical toy or model with a reasonable level of fidelity.

All the more impressive is that Kawamori is not alone in that regard when it comes to working on Macross.  He has had the assistance of similarly talented designers like cockpit designer Junya Ishigaki (who also designed the Macross Zero destroids) and destroid, battle pod, and spaceship designer Kazutaka Miyatake.  The Battle-class is Miyatake's work.

There's a lovely section on its progression from the earliest concepts to the final design and transformation in Kazutaka Miyatake Design Works: Macross & Orguss that starts on page 47.  He also has some commentary on the thought process behind Battle 13 in the VF-X section starting on page 81.

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, SebastianP said:

I'm having a big empty head moment here, because as far as I remember, none of the anime actually *does* directly reference the events of the VF-X2 game in any obvious way. 

I haven't had time to check all of Frontier because there's so many different political discussions spread out across the show, but I don't remember Vindirance or Lactence, or the 2050 coup attempt, being brought up at all, anywhere in any anime. If you know that it happened, you can see its *effects* everywhere, but if you didn't know about it you'd just gloss over it entirely so it feels almost like sneaky fanservice. 

(I did verify the one instance in Delta where it was likely to have come up in discussion, which was Berger's exposition in episode 19, but he goes from Macross 7 to Macross Frontier and entirely skips the 2050 coup attempt). 

And the only things I remember relating to VF-X2 in Macross 30 is that there were skins for the Ravens in there, for the VF-11 and VF-19 if I recall correctly. There may have been something in the descriptions for those skins, but I never bothered pulling up my camera to read those. 

There are a few references, but they're relatively low key compared to what's in the other media because the TV anime is meant to be maximally accessible with the bare minimum amount of continuity baggage.  It is mostly on the level of sneaky fanservice there.  Like Ernest Johnson and Grammier Neirich Windermere both having participated in the Second Unification Wars, though only Grammier's service is remarked on at any length.  Its most profound impacts are in how it shaped the setting itself, which is more in the realm of the creator commentary track than the series proper.

It's much more blatant in the novelizations, manga, games, etc. which are marketed more towards fans.

The novelizations of Macross Frontier and Macross Delta practically have too many to name, like making Manfred Brando the sponsor of Mao Nome's expedition to Vajra space and the reason Ozma gets tossed out of the NUNS, Aegis Focker being Ozma's mentor and a student of Jeffrey Wilder, Manfred's Sound Jamming System using fold quartz, and an AI copy of Manfred's mind being an antagonist in its own right.  Macross the Ride's antagonist faction, Fasces, is a literal Latence splinter fleet still fighting for the same goal.  

Macross 30 has a couple of 'em.  The game's antagonists, Havamal, are a New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces unit like the Ravens (the 815th Independent Squadron).  Leon Sakaki's homeworld Sephira is the site of one of the Ravens missions in Macross VF-X2 as well.  Two VF-X2 fighters are also available in game: the initial type VF-22 and the VF-19A Ravens type.  

[SebastianP]

37 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

There are a few references, but they're relatively low key compared to what's in the other media because the TV anime is meant to be maximally accessible with the bare minimum amount of continuity baggage.  It is mostly on the level of sneaky fanservice there.  Like Ernest Johnson and Grammier Neirich Windermere both having participated in the Second Unification Wars, though only Grammier's service is remarked on at any length.  Its most profound impacts are in how it shaped the setting itself, which is more in the realm of the creator commentary track than the series proper.

That tracks with what I was remembering.

38 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

It's much more blatant in the novelizations, manga, games, etc. which are marketed more towards fans.

The novelizations of Macross Frontier and Macross Delta practically have too many to name, like making Manfred Brando the sponsor of Mao Nome's expedition to Vajra space and the reason Ozma gets tossed out of the NUNS, Aegis Focker being Ozma's mentor and a student of Jeffrey Wilder, Manfred's Sound Jamming System using fold quartz, and an AI copy of Manfred's mind being an antagonist in its own right.  Macross the Ride's antagonist faction, Fasces, is a literal Latence splinter fleet still fighting for the same goal.  

I wish I could get my hands on those novels, but local amazon doesn't list them, and US amazon won't ship those books to my country. And anywhere else, I'm going to get hit with Japanpost's postage, plus a 7 euro handling fee, plus 20% import duties, and 25% sales tax on the entire amount including the postage. I don't shop from Japan anymore after I ended up paying 60 euros in shipping, handling and taxes on a 15 euro gunpla.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Macross 30 has a couple of 'em.  The game's antagonists, Havamal, are a New UN Spacy VF-X Special Forces unit like the Ravens (the 815th Independent Squadron).  Leon Sakaki's homeworld Sephira is the site of one of the Ravens missions in Macross VF-X2 as well.  Two VF-X2 fighters are also available in game: the initial type VF-22 and the VF-19A Ravens type.  

Oh, cool - I missed those. I did remember the Ravens paint job for the VF-19, at least...