Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[aurance]

When they say “marines” in Macross, are they meaning strictly seaborne troops, delivered by the UN Navy? Or are they including spaceborne forces? If meaning the former, why would they even still exist?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, aurance said:

When they say “marines” in Macross, are they meaning strictly seaborne troops, delivered by the UN Navy? Or are they including spaceborne forces? If meaning the former, why would they even still exist?

So... that's a bit of a rabbit hole in its own right since there are seemingly two separate Marine Corps.

 

When the then-newly inaugurated Earth Unification (UN) Government officially commenced business in February 2001, one of the first things they did was to establish the Earth UN Forces to reorganize and integrate the various national militaries of Earth into a cohesive fighting force for planetary defense.  The Earth UN Forces originally had four branches: the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps.  These four conventional forces were exactly what you'd expect given their names.  We know relatively little about them, as the story doesn't focus on any of them directly and they show up infrequently in the print lore.  However, we know a few details like that the Daedalus-class was developed in large part with the Marines in mind (originally the US Marines who formed the backbone of the UN Marines) and that they had an interest in VFs as a replacement for aging VTOL/STOVL jets used in close air support to have their own VF-0 variant (the VF-0C).  

The fifth branch, the Spacy (space force) was added two years later in 2003.

 

After the First Space War, things get a little bit weirder and a little bit harder to explain.

The New Unification Government takes over for the destroyed Earth Unification Government in 2010 and at some unknown date in 2010 or early 2011 someone in power makes the decision to have portions of the Spacy spun off as separate branches of service: the Spacy Air Force and Spacy Marine Corps.

Exactly what the organizational division of responsibilities there is is unclear at best.  As far as I am aware, they have never been properly explained.  They first appear in the This is Animation book for the Macross Plus OVA in Variable Fighters Aero Report, with the Spacy Air Force subsequently appearing in Macross Plus and the Spacy Marine Corps in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta.  The Spacy Marine Corps seems obvious enough.  They've got to be ground forces and related air support attached to/transported by the Spacy's fleets.  The Spacy Air Force makes less sense.  Presumably they're the non-carrier aviation arm of the space forces... but that seems to leave their role overlapping with that of the Air Force, since the one base of theirs that we see directly is planetside.

 

 

With respect to the "why do they still exist?" part... if Isamu's service record is any indication, there is a fair amount of inter-service mobility (more aligned to the JSDF) in the New UN Forces and there is still some semblance of a blue water navy left given that Isamu serves a brief stint about the UNN Enterprise in 2035.  

Edited Saturday at 09:15 PM by Seto Kaiba

[Seto Kaiba]

So... I have a weird bit of esoterica that's been vexing me and I'm wondering if one of the other contributors here might help.

In Macross the Ride, Ukyo Kodachi seems to have indulged himself in giving any reasonably plot-relevant ship or mecha a Meaningful Name.

Most of them are reasonably straightforward.  The YF-27-3/YF-27-5's name and the name of Wisla & Oder were a bit of a struggle because they're misspelled.  

The one that's still got me stumped is the Macross Galaxy fleet's Riviera-class resort ship... its name エヴナ is either Evna or Evuna.  I cannot find a satisfactory reference, either to a place or story, that fits this one, aside from the Town of Evna from L. Frank Baum's Oz series, which doesn't seem to have thematic relevance.  Can anyone think of any places or people (from fiction) named "Evna" or "Evuna"?

[pengbuzz]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So... I have a weird bit of esoterica that's been vexing me and I'm wondering if one of the other contributors here might help.

In Macross the Ride, Ukyo Kodachi seems to have indulged himself in giving any reasonably plot-relevant ship or mecha a Meaningful Name.

Most of them are reasonably straightforward.  The YF-27-3/YF-27-5's name and the name of Wisla & Oder were a bit of a struggle because they're misspelled.  

The one that's still got me stumped is the Macross Galaxy fleet's Riviera-class resort ship... its name エヴナ is either Evna or Evuna.  I cannot find a satisfactory reference, either to a place or story, that fits this one, aside from the Town of Evna from L. Frank Baum's Oz series, which doesn't seem to have thematic relevance.  Can anyone think of any places or people (from fiction) named "Evna" or "Evuna"?

 

Coincidentally, there is a book called Ozma of Oz; hearkening back to Ozma in Frontier perhaps?

 

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Coincidentally, there is a book called Ozma of Oz; hearkening back to Ozma in Frontier perhaps?

Probably not, IMO.

The titular character in L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz is a woman.  Princess Ozma, ruler of the Land of Oz.  There's only room for one princess in SMS Skull Platoon, and everyone knows that's Alto. 😜

Ozma Lee's name is probably a reference/homage... but not to L. Frank Baum's Oz series.  He's probably named for the titular character in Osamu Tezuka's 1961-1964 sci-fi manga series Ozma Taichou (オズマ隊長, lit. Commanding Officer Ozma).  The rest of his unit does insistently refer to him in exactly those terms.

[pengbuzz]

On 6/22/2025 at 1:33 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Probably not, IMO.

The titular character in L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz is a woman.  Princess Ozma, ruler of the Land of Oz.  There's only room for one princess in SMS Skull Platoon, and everyone knows that's Alto. 😜

On 6/22/2025 at 1:33 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Ozma Lee's name is probably a reference/homage... but not to L. Frank Baum's Oz series.  He's probably named for the titular character in Osamu Tezuka's 1961-1964 sci-fi manga series Ozma Taichou (オズマ隊長, lit. Commanding Officer Ozma).  The rest of his unit does insistently refer to him in exactly those terms.

Ah; not familiar with  that one, I'm afraid.

Edited 12 hours ago by pengbuzz

[TG Remix]

On 6/20/2025 at 3:06 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

There's never really been a good explanation for why some of those atmosphere-focused designs exist.  The VF-4's Navy variant is a great example of that.  Who the hell needed that?

Presumably water bound planets like Eden-3? Or probably any government that has enough local threats planetside that it constituted forces like a Navy or an Army. Some populations are gonna be bigger then others after all, and the more people the more of a chance they want to act up.

 

There's also some merit with some of the standard VF types as well, the VF-5000 was designed as a lightweight air superiority fighter to work in tandem with the ground/local based VA-3, it just so happened that it was popular enough to be a next-generation fighter alongside the VF-4. Then there's why the VF-11 was chosen as the winner of the Nova Project over the VF-14; the latter has a longer cruise speed, sturdy, and has a lot of empty space in the airframe to make it easily upgradable, but the Thunderbolt was valued for it's versatility in all fields, whether be in space or in the atmosphere. Being designed as a carrier-borne aircraft also helps its case, where the VF-14 struggled in that field. Perhaps that's a reason why the UN designed the Varauta Army ships aside from giving fleets and planets ships that prioritized firepower.

 

On 6/20/2025 at 3:06 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

I'd even question the claim that the Super Defender - explicitly a modified ADR-04-Mk.X - is a "second generation" machine.  It's a modified first generation machine, not a new design.

I'm reminded of the Day in Alcatraz story Kodachi wrote to tie in for his movie novelization where the OCTOS bis appears to respond to SMS' prison break to save Sheryl. I'd thought that design would be lost to time since it's even more obscure then the Sv-51, but there it was as a NUNS Special Forces Destroid; the thing was even given a VF-19EF gunpod in the place of it's original dual machine gun! I suppose replicas could be build sort of like the Sv-52s in The Ride and in Frontier's novelization supposedly, as the UN itself made 28 for themselves. Granted the production line was destroyed with obvious reasons, but history always gets unearthed in stranger ways.

 

On another side note, I do love the reverence the story gives the Destroid Tomahawk of all things, to the point that Alcatraz's warden, James, used it to fend off the OCTOS bis' alongside Temujin. It's a really interesting story showing the prison break scene in the perspective of those from the place, where they all group up together to help out. I recommended it if anyone wants more Frontier stuff to sink their teeth in. 

 

On 6/21/2025 at 5:11 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

The Spacy Air Force makes less sense.  Presumably they're the non-carrier aviation arm of the space forces... but that seems to leave their role overlapping with that of the Air Force, since the one base of theirs that we see directly is planetside.

The best guess I have that it's sort of an aerospace branch? Where they have VFs act as interceptors in the stratosphere like the RF-12A2 and R-311 Remora in Ace Combat 3, where they have carrier ships patrol and cruise in high altitudes as a in-between point? Wish we got more elaboration on it so we wouldn't have to do all the guess work.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

Presumably water bound planets like Eden-3? Or probably any government that has enough local threats planetside that it constituted forces like a Navy or an Army. Some populations are gonna be bigger then others after all, and the more people the more of a chance they want to act up.

What "local threats", though?

Who else is operating a Navy on these planets?  Emigrant fleets are colonizing uninhabited planets.  There are laws against colonizing planets that already have sentients living on them.  The VF-4's Navy variant is said to be mainly an interceptor and anti-ship strike fighter.  Whose ships is this thing made to attack when there's only one Navy anywhere?  The VF-4's Navy variant is from a period when even emigrant planets were few and far between, well before the era when there was anti-government terrorism and civil wars amongst the emigrant governments.

It feels like one of those details where the creators forgot that there really weren't any significant threats left planetside.

 

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

There's also some merit with some of the standard VF types as well, the VF-5000 was designed as a lightweight air superiority fighter to work in tandem with the ground/local based VA-3, it just so happened that it was popular enough to be a next-generation fighter alongside the VF-4.

The VA-3's an all-regime machine, not an atmosphere-optimized one. 

Also, the VF-5000 was developed to supplement/compensate for the VF-4's shortcomings as an atmospheric fighter and dogfighter not as a companion craft for the VA-3.  

 

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

I'm reminded of the Day in Alcatraz story Kodachi wrote to tie in for his movie novelization where the OCTOS bis appears to respond to SMS' prison break to save Sheryl. I'd thought that design would be lost to time since it's even more obscure then the Sv-51, but there it was as a NUNS Special Forces Destroid; the thing was even given a VF-19EF gunpod in the place of it's original dual machine gun! I suppose replicas could be build sort of like the Sv-52s in The Ride and in Frontier's novelization supposedly, as the UN itself made 28 for themselves. Granted the production line was destroyed with obvious reasons, but history always gets unearthed in stranger ways.

Eh... it's not that surprising, really.

The Macross Frontier fleet is more or less set up as a pre-First Space War theme park.  The fleet recreates large portions of several famous cities or districts like San Francisco, Shibuya, Akihabara, Beijing... even things like period-correct cars are recreated (albeit with modern technology under the hood).  Given that the fleet bothered to reproduce an old model air defense Destroid as cannon fodder and build up replicas of pre-war helicopters for a movie, it's not surprising they'd reproduce other period machines if they felt it was advantageous.  They're really committed to the bit.

It's absolutely ridiculous overkill for the purpose, though.  A GU-15 or GU-17 against unarmed, unarmored Zentradi prisoners?  That's like going deerhunting with a tank destroyer.

 

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

On another side note, I do love the reverence the story gives the Destroid Tomahawk of all things, to the point that Alcatraz's warden, James, used it to fend off the OCTOS bis' alongside Temujin. It's a really interesting story showing the prison break scene in the perspective of those from the place, where they all group up together to help out. I recommended it if anyone wants more Frontier stuff to sink their teeth in. 

That's about the level I'd expect in terms of capability... not actually viable on the battlefield, but adequate for bullying unarmed Zentradi inmates in the absence of newer dedicated machines that don't fit the fleet's visual aesthetic.  An out-of-date model sold off as an unwanted asset by the military that eventually become purely decorative.

Mind you, the way this is phrased it makes it sound like the prison was being attacked from the outside which is a bit silly given that fleet's only had chance encounters with rogue Zentradi and they were all fended off before threatening the environment ships.

 

1 hour ago, TG Remix said:

The best guess I have that it's sort of an aerospace branch? Where they have VFs act as interceptors in the stratosphere like the RF-12A2 and R-311 Remora in Ace Combat 3, where they have carrier ships patrol and cruise in high altitudes as a in-between point? Wish we got more elaboration on it so we wouldn't have to do all the guess work.

Maybe... though the branch seems to predate the existence of fighters which could quickly ascend to orbit from a planetary surface, and it also has the misfortune to come after the concept of "floating stands" (space airbases) in gensynchronous orbit as part of planetary defenses.  Perhaps they're the aviation units left to man things like moon bases or satellite cities.