Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I imagined that so much focused energy through the energy weapons (I know solid ammo doesn't do that) would degrade them, much like in Star Wars, the laser tips on the X-wings have to be replaced every so often for that very reason.

I'm not sure how laser weapons work in Star Wars, so I can't say much about that.

Generally speak, though, since many lasers depend heavily on mirrors to collimate the beam you wouldn't want a laser weapon to be so powerful that it can damage itself with its own output.

When it comes to particle beams, the beam never touches the interior of the accelerator because doing so would be akin to the structural failure of a gun's barrel during firing... it'd wreck the weapon.

 

1 hour ago, RangerKarl said:

A particle beam would still be throwing matter at a target, albeit extremely minute amounts at very very high velocities in collimated beams.

By definition, yes.

 

1 hour ago, RangerKarl said:

So it sorta does make sense that it has a magazine, if you think of it as more of a tank of elemental gas. 

Well, yes and no.

As I touched on in my previous post, the explanation(s) we've gotten about how most (non-dimensional) energy weapons in Macross work presents them as weapons that can be operated indefinitely as long as the mecha's reactors continue to run.  They get any charged particles or plasma they need from the reactor itself.  That's why Mirage's comment in the novelization is so odd.  It implies the VF-31 has a beam weapon (the gunpod) for which that is not true.

 

1 hour ago, RangerKarl said:

This would be in line with how the MDE Beam Matrices worked before I guess, as you would be loading up particalized fold quartz bits to use as your plasmified matter.

That's a whole different animal.  Two, really.  You're potentially conflating two different weapons.

MDE shells and warheads are essentially a miniaturized version of the Dimension Eater bomb that destroyed Gallia IV.  They use fine particles of fold quartz to create fold waves that "activate" the super heavy quantum in the shell/warhead so that its immense gravity tears adjacent matter apart as a short lived pseudo black hole before it drops back into fold space.

MDE beam weapons use fold quartz as a catalyst to generate super heavy quantum and manipulate its gravity with fold waves so that the weapon fires a particle beam made up of short lived pseudo black holes that pull the matter they come in contact with into fold space.  As far as we know, the beam version doesn't consume any fold quartz.

 

1 hour ago, RangerKarl said:

My contention really was with the terminology of 'optical munition/stores', as peebees don't work like that.

True... as the actual definition of "optical weapon" implies the weapon is firing collimated electromagnetic radiation, which particle beams aren't.

[RangerKarl]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's a whole different animal.  Two, really.  You're potentially conflating two different weapons.

MDE shells and warheads are essentially a miniaturized version of the Dimension Eater bomb that destroyed Gallia IV.  They use fine particles of fold quartz to create fold waves that "activate" the super heavy quantum in the shell/warhead so that its immense gravity tears adjacent matter apart as a short lived pseudo black hole before it drops back into fold space.

MDE beam weapons use fold quartz as a catalyst to generate super heavy quantum and manipulate its gravity with fold waves so that the weapon fires a particle beam made up of short lived pseudo black holes that pull the matter they come in contact with into fold space.  As far as we know, the beam version doesn't consume any fold quartz.

I thought the fold quartz particle source would still get expended from constant firings. The way Frontier always had it, it ended up being a bit of a finite resource. 

I'm now wondering if the Master File writers also had that belief about the MDE particle guns, and sorta followed up on that with the ammo-dependent particle gunpods. In the case of another Vajra problem you could just swap your magazine types, instead of getting hard-locked into an MDE-spec weapon. 

If traditional PBWs are funneling excess plasma from the reactor, it could be that there are some issues with trunking that stuff from the engine, through the hand hardpoint into the gunpod. Before Frontier the energy gunpod was a one-shot attachment for the Nightmare. The magazine system might also be a way to avoid that engineering choice.

Edited December 1 by RangerKarl

[Seto Kaiba]

5 hours ago, RangerKarl said:

I thought the fold quartz particle source would still get expended from constant firings.

Based on the descriptions we have, the fold quartz isn't the particle source in a direct sense.

The particulars of how a Gravity and Inertia Control system creates heavy quantum are not given, but fold carbon (or fold quartz) is said to be a key component of the system that serves to somehow catalyze the creation of heavy quantum and produces fold waves used to control the heavy quantum's gravity.  It's not consumed in the process.

 

5 hours ago, RangerKarl said:

The way Frontier always had it, it ended up being a bit of a finite resource.

Oh, it definitely is.

As far as we know, fold quartz is either not a naturally-occurring substance or if it does occur in nature it is almost impossibly rare.  The Vajra use an unknown biological process to refine raw fold ore (fold coal) into fold carbon and fold quartz.  The ancient Protoculture studied the Vajra extensively and were eventually able to develop a technological means of synthesizing fold quartz.  Humanity is still more or less at the point of picking over Protoculture ruins and old Vajra carcasses and nests for leftover fold quartz, so fold quartz of a usable purity for many essential purposes is quite rare and incredibly valuable.  

Humanity is noted to be working on a means of synthesizing fold quartz the way they do fold carbon, but there is no indication that the process has borne fruit so far.  (Master File suggests that the answer is "probably not" in the 2060s.)

 

5 hours ago, RangerKarl said:

I'm now wondering if the Master File writers also had that belief about the MDE particle guns, and sorta followed up on that with the ammo-dependent particle gunpods. In the case of another Vajra problem you could just swap your magazine types, instead of getting hard-locked into an MDE-spec weapon. 

Master File has yet to devote a volume to a craft that was equipped with Heavy Quantum or MDE beam weaponry as standard like the VF-171EX, VF-27, or YF-29, or YF-30.

The brief description of MDE weapons and the VF-171EX's MDE beam cannon in the VF-25 Master File is very much in line with the previously-stated description from the official setting materials.  Fold quartz particles are used in the trigger mechanisms of MDE bullets and missile warheads in order to provide the fold waves that activate the super heavy quantum and cause the "fold bomb" effect, while the MDE beam weapons are firing particle beams made up of the super heavy quantum produced by a fold quartz-equipped GIC.  There's no mention of a "beam cartridge" system like the one found on the VF-31's LU-18A gunpod writeup in the VF-31 Master File.

 

5 hours ago, RangerKarl said:

If traditional PBWs are funneling excess plasma from the reactor, it could be that there are some issues with trunking that stuff from the engine, through the hand hardpoint into the gunpod. Before Frontier the energy gunpod was a one-shot attachment for the Nightmare. The magazine system might also be a way to avoid that engineering choice.

Potentially.  It might raise some awkward questions about the VF-27's beam gunpod if true, since it's not 100% clear if the VF-27's beam gunpod was a charged particle gunpod that was upgraded to a heavy quantum and later MDE beam specification or if it was a heavy quantum one from the jump.  If the VF-27 could pull off getting the necessary particles from the engines to the gunpod, it'd make one wonder why the VF-31 couldn't.

[TG Remix]

 

On 11/28/2025 at 10:10 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Outside of the original series where the first-ever generation of Zentradi adapting to Earth's culture struggled, the only time we really see that is with the 33rd Marines in Frontier.

I'm assuming you're referring to strictly animated series, because that is true. It's mostly the cases we see in spin offs and side material where either that 1st generation struggles, or they and future generations adopt the worst parts of culture.

 

VF-X's villains do what they do to resurrect their way of endless war, to the point that Rival being glad that he surrendered to the Earthling's by dying as a warrior. The Musicalture presents the Neo-Zentran movement as one by a younger generation to militarize the literally defenseless Macross 29, but then you get scenes where they get stunned by the main character's singing. Most of M3's antagonists are explicitly or implied to be Zentradi, such as Struggle, the terrorist group who are made of Zentradi defectors from the UN. The New York Liberation League, which is in odds with the local Neo York government, consists of a variety of aircraft including the Gnerl, and Mission 2 where you fight and grab Moaramia away, the setting is the planet Cristrania, which is a fundamentalist Zentradi colony who's harboring the terrorists designing the Variable Glaug.

 

Edit: There was also the 2nd Battle of Macross City that was alluded to in timelines and VF-X2, the one that not only banned giants on Earth but also had tens of thousands of Zentradi fleeing away as a result in anti-Earth colony ships....Why would Macross Chronicle tie the Macross 5 fleet to insurgents escaping judgement other then the fact they're also Zentradi emigrants is beyond me. I don't even know why that's a additional bit of lore to begin with!

 

Of course they're not as prominent as the animated stuff, but it's one of those things where smaller material is indicative of the bigger fandom and/or creator mentality.  

On 11/29/2025 at 5:42 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Algenicus, though... I've been unable to find anything on that one.  It's such a specific name, and they went to the trouble of spelling it out in English... I get nothing for any possible spelling of it, and the kana doesn't produce any results in the Japanese wiki either.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's an attempt to integrate Zentradi language into the world a bit more. Not only it has some design language of their ships, but we get that plenty in Plus where many of Sharon's songs are sung in Zentran, and "Deculture" kind of becomes a loan word by Frontier.

 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Humanity is noted to be working on a means of synthesizing fold quartz the way they do fold carbon, but there is no indication that the process has borne fruit so far.  (Master File suggests that the answer is "probably not" in the 2060s.)

Was there ever an attempt of using higher quality of normal fold carbon for 5th Gen VFs? You think with such a finite source the government at large would try for a more economical alternative. On that train of thought, does fold carbon has its own supernatural qualities aside from being used on ships? As in, could it resonate in a way through music?

 

Edited December 2 by TG Remix

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

The Musicalture presents the Neo-Zentran movement as one by a younger generation to militarize the literally defenseless Macross 29, but then you get scenes where they get stunned by the main character's singing. [...]

That's a bit of a disservice to them.  The Neo Zentran political movement in the Macross 29 fleet advocates for rearmament for economic reasons not a desire for warfare.

Spoiler

Under Vigo, the Neo Zentran's goal is to abandon the current fleet government's policy of unarmed total pacifism and reestablish the fleet's New UN Forces in order to save the fleet's economy from an economic death spiral. 

Abandoning the fleet government's current policy of unarmed total pacifism and having some sabers to rattle would, according to the Neo Zentran, allow the fleet to secure fair trade agreements with its neighbors instead of being an extreme doormat.

Reestablishing the fleet's New UN Forces will, in and of itself, create a HUGE number of badly needed public and private sector jobs.

 

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Of course they're not as prominent as the animated stuff, but it's one of those things where smaller material is indicative of the bigger fandom and/or creator mentality.  

Yeah, but these are minor incidental level affairs that are cleared up by a single special forces unit.  It's not like these groups represent a majority of Zentradi or even a significant minority.  They're basically the spacefuture version of the militant wackos that every developed country produces in some small numbers.  (The Zentradi may be overrepresented simply because their natural fight-or-flight response is stuck on "fight" due to genetic engineering.)

 

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

I wouldn't be surprised if it's an attempt to integrate Zentradi language into the world a bit more. Not only it has some design language of their ships, but we get that plenty in Plus where many of Sharon's songs are sung in Zentran, and "Deculture" kind of becomes a loan word by Frontier.

I don't think that's it.  There haven't been any ships with explicitly Zentradi names thus far, excluding the SDFN-08 General Vrlitwhai Kridanik (which is named for a person), and this looks to be structured like a masculine given name in Roman Latin.  The suffix -icus normally means "of/from" or "belonging to" or "pertaining to".  It's almost like "genticus", which would be "belonging to a gens (family)"... which would definitely fit the theme of Moaramia's journey.

 

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

Was there ever an attempt of using higher quality of normal fold carbon for 5th Gen VFs? You think with such a finite source the government at large would try for a more economical alternative.

Eh... that depends.  Master File contends that the VF-24/25/26/27 already use the highest-quality fold carbon that could be reliably produced for the various systems and features that require it (e.g. reaction engines, certain beam weapons, active stealth, EFAM, the Aegis pack's fold wave radar, etc.).  

It's not pure enough to make a working Inertia Store Converter, which is why fold quartz is necessary in the first place and the scarcity of it is why it's used as sparingly as the New UN Forces and various defense companies can get away with.  The best you can do with very high purity fold carbon is to make the Queadluun-Rau's inertia vector control system, which is a similar technology that isn't quite as fit for purpose because its main focus is optimizing propellant consumption.

Master File suggests the Earth New UN Spacy is experimenting with using the latest ultra-high purity fold carbon as a substitute for fold quartz in a Fold Wave System.  Its account suggests that it does work, but only about 1% as well as the Vajra Queen-level fold quartz used in Alto's YF-29.

 

3 hours ago, TG Remix said:

On that train of thought, does fold carbon has its own supernatural qualities aside from being used on ships? As in, could it resonate in a way through music?

Fold quartz is just purified fold carbon.  There's nothing really supernatural about either of them... not any more than, say, dilithium in Star Trek is.  It's multipurposeful, but all of the things it can do are treated in a purely scientific context.  They both produce fold waves in various applications, produce heavy quantum in GIC systems, etc.  Fold quartz is a purer form that simply does everything fold carbon can do better.

Between Master File's above-mentioned assertions WRT using ultra-pure fold carbon in a Fold Wave System in exchange for greatly reduced performance and Fire Bomber's Sound Energy system and Sound Booster being built around a modified fold system, it seems a safe-ish bet to say that fold carbon can be used to resonate with/transmit songs.

[RangerKarl]

15 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Potentially.  It might raise some awkward questions about the VF-27's beam gunpod if true, since it's not 100% clear if the VF-27's beam gunpod was a charged particle gunpod that was upgraded to a heavy quantum and later MDE beam specification or if it was a heavy quantum one from the jump.  If the VF-27 could pull off getting the necessary particles from the engines to the gunpod, it'd make one wonder why the VF-31 couldn't.

Thematically, I can buy it. The VF-31 was a plane whose design program was initiated by a local government group trying to spark economic growth. I can believe them cutting the cost for that, maybe due to something like "not-invented-here" syndrome or a misplaced desire to save pennies on things like certification while wanting a big ticket bulletpoint for sales.

[Sildani]

So a thought I just had... dangerous, I know. When did fold carbon/quartz become so widespread and vital? Was the SDF-1 filled with it in order to work and the original Macross shows just not touch on it? Was it purely to use as a McGuffin for Frontier? How did the SDF-1 and other superdimensional devices work if not with fold carbon/quartz?

[RangerKarl]

I think Seto has much better citations, but I do recall Isamu getting threatened with an assignment to the coal mines of some space colony. I guess they had the idea all the way back then.

[Seto Kaiba]

40 minutes ago, Sildani said:

When did fold carbon/quartz become so widespread and vital? Was the SDF-1 filled with it in order to work and the original Macross shows just not touch on it? Was it purely to use as a McGuffin for Frontier? How did the SDF-1 and other superdimensional devices work if not with fold carbon/quartz?

Fold carbon and fold quartz were both officially introduced to the Macross setting in Macross Frontier.

Fold carbon was introduced to the setting and story partly as a way to explain how fold quartz can be "dropped in" to improve the performance of existing OTM rather than needing to develop new versions of technology around it and concoct new explanations for how key technologies work.  It was effectively retconned into having always been a part of OTM from the very beginning as a key component in the Gravity and Inertia Control tech that underpins most OTM.  Prior to that point, there wasn't an explanation for exactly how a GIC system goes about creating artificial gravity.  Supplemental technical material like Master File subsequently went absolutely ham tying this into everything from explaining why the early fold systems Humanity built didn't work very well to why there are such massive leaps in engine performance between certain generations and even why some fold boosters are single-use.

As with several other late additions, one might say this was foreshadowed in an earlier work.  Specifically Macross Dynamite 7, where it was noted that crystalline galactic whales were hunted because their bodies contained materials used in the construction of fold systems.  The Frontier novelizations similarly turned a macguffin from Macross VF-X2 into foreshadowing of fold quartz's existence and potential.

It would be fair to say that, at least in post-Frontier publications, the ASS-1/SDF-1 Macross was fairly packed with fold carbon since it's used in the GIC systems of thermonuclear reactors, gravity control systems, inertia control systems, fold navigation, fold communication, cross-dimensional radar, particle beam cannons, holographic projection systems, thermonuclear reaction warheads, the ship's main gun system, active stealth tech, and any/all of the same found on the battle pods and auxiliary craft found aboard the derelict ship.

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, RangerKarl said:

I think Seto has much better citations, but I do recall Isamu getting threatened with an assignment to the coal mines of some space colony. I guess they had the idea all the way back then.

While Frontier-era materials did establish that the raw/least pure grade of fold ore is sometimes called fold coal, I don't think any source has connected it to the supposed coal mines on Banipal that Isamu was threatened with in Plus.

EDIT: The reason some have speculated that Banipal might be a fold coal mine is that it wouldn't really make any sense for a civilization that possesses room temperature superconductors, lossless energy storage, high-efficiency wind and solar power, ultra-high efficiency thermonuclear generators and a mindset VERY focused on preserving the biospheres of planets would bother mining fossil fuels.

EDIT 2: Of course even then it doesn't really make sense, since there isn't a need to mine the raw materials for fold carbon when it can be synthesized in industrial quantities using existing technology.

Edited December 2 by Seto Kaiba
Clarification

[Seto Kaiba]

My exploration of energy weapons in Macross turned up a few more interesting oddities.

First is that Master File actually made the beam cannon confusion worse since apparently its version of the VF-4 has not one, not two, but four different forearm-mounted guns for the VF-4.  Three of which look virtually identical.  One being a version of the same ROV-20 laser cannon used by the VF-1, the next being a charged particle beam cannon powered off the reactors, and the third being a charged particle beam gun powered by "beam cartridges".  Interestingly, it seems to imply that the VF-27's beam gunpod is NOT a beam cartridge type.

Second, Master File didn't come up with the idea that the VF-1's RO-X2A Strike pack cannon was a laser weapon.  They got that from Sky Angels.  Instead of being a safer and more conventional gas dynamic laser cannon, the original version is an inertial confinement fusion-pumped x-ray laser cannon.  Essentially, a less insane but repeatably usable version of Project Excalibur's heinously bonkers nuclear bomb-pumped x-ray laser system concept.

[RangerKarl]

I...well, if you do have a sun in a bottle on tap, why would you not try to use it as a lasing gain/excitator medium somehow?

[Seto Kaiba]

On 12/4/2025 at 11:45 PM, RangerKarl said:

I...well, if you do have a sun in a bottle on tap, why would you not try to use it as a lasing gain/excitator medium somehow?

On the one hand, why wouldn't you take advantage of such a grotesquely OP technology for stimulated emission?

On the other, I'd be very worried if one of my colleagues came to me and said "Remember that time we tried to make a wildly impractical nuclear bomb-pumped x-ray laser cannon to shoot down ICBMs?  I think I know how we can make it work and put it on a plane now."

 

That's not to say that there haven't been similarly bonkers weapons tossed out in newer material.  The VF-22 Master File introduces a Strike Pack beam cannon for the VF-22 that's a scaled-down version of a Zentradi warship's guided focusing beam cannon.  It uses a dedicated compact thermonuclear reactor to vaporize heavy metals in order to use launch that vapor as a high-velocity particle beam with an output power in the hundreds of megawatts.

[PixelatedShinobi]

I've been building the excellent new HG VF-31J Siegfried, and the build process actually left me with a question about its weapons - what are the two little gold cylinders in the head? They appear to be laser cannons, but official specs for the siggie list only the head-mounted laser. Are these vents, or cameras, or something? I've no idea.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 minutes ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I've been building the excellent new HG VF-31J Siegfried, and the build process actually left me with a question about its weapons - what are the two little gold cylinders in the head? They appear to be laser cannons, but official specs for the siggie list only the head-mounted laser. Are these vents, or cameras, or something? I've no idea.

As far as we know, the only weapon mounted in the VF-31J's monitor turret (head) is the obvious one: its Mauler ROV-127E 12.7mm multi-band fiber laser cannon.

The barrel-like structures on the VF-31J, as well as similar ones found on other VFs, have not been identified.  It's possible that it's some kind of structural component used to hold the monitor turret in place in Fighter and GERWALK modes or that it's related to one of the many sensor systems packed into the monitor turret.  

[Big s]

19 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said:

I've been building the excellent new HG VF-31J Siegfried, and the build process actually left me with a question about its weapons - what are the two little gold cylinders in the head? They appear to be laser cannons, but official specs for the siggie list only the head-mounted laser. Are these vents, or cameras, or something? I've no idea.

Reminds me of the Vulcan head mounted machine guns in gundam mobile suits. maybe the vents were intended to cool them or something originally, and then maybe someone just forgot they were there

could also be just connectors for fighter mode to keep it stable or for recharging the head laser gun

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Reminds me of the Vulcan head mounted machine guns in gundam mobile suits. maybe the vents were intended to cool them or something originally, and then maybe someone just forgot they were there

That's pretty unlikely.  After all, the reason that the monitor turrets of Battroids are armed with laser weapons instead of conventional anti-aircraft cannons is that, back when the SDF Macross series was in development, Kawamori et. al. realized pretty early on that a Battroid's head was going to be far too small to plausibly fit a then-modern air-to-air machine gun like the F-14's M61A1 Vulcan or the Panavia Tornado's BK-27 and enough ammunition to make it remotely usable.

Spoiler

To put it in perspective, the VF-1's head (minus laser cannons) has a footprint of about 1 cubic meter.  In its most compact and space-efficient configuration, the M61A1 is 1.83m long, 0.65m wide, and about 1.16m tall.  The gun alone would be 38% bigger than the Battroid's entire head, leaving no room for any of the many sensors that are needed for a Battroid to operate.

It's been a bit of a creator's in-joke ever since... so much so that the VF-0 Master File directly references it as an in-universe design obstacle the Stonewell Bellcom team working on the VF-0 encountered in the 2000s.

 

In a way, you could say Macross's insistence on head-mounted energy weapons is a rebuke of Gundam's infamously useless "head vulcans"...

Spoiler

Gundam's RX-78 Gundam could get away with having two 60mm rotary cannons in the head because it's much bigger (18m as opposed to 12m), doesn't have to make any accommodations for transformation (so no need for local power storage), and contains only a handful of sensors (two internal binocular cameras, two exterior monocular cameras, one short-ranged radar, and some directional microphones), and gives most of the back of the head over to the ammo drums. 

Even then, those 60mm cannons only have enough ammunition for about 15 seconds of fully automatic fire and the rounds themselves aren't powerful enough to reliably inflict meaningful damage on enemy mobile suits at close range.

The Gundam gave most of its head over to this massive pair of cannons that were, in the final analysis, only really good for annoying other Mobile Suit pilots, harassing infantry, and shooting down the occasional plane.

By sticking with laser or particle beam weapons, the Battroid has a coaxial gun that will never run out of ammunition and can be plausibly made powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage because their main design constraint is power availability.  It also retains enough space for all the optics and other sensors the Battroid requires to go about its business.

[pengbuzz]

14 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

  Hide contents

To put it in perspective, the VF-1's head (minus laser cannons) has a footprint of about 1 cubic meter.  In its most compact and space-efficient configuration, the M61A1 is 1.83m long, 0.65m wide, and about 1.16m tall.  The gun alone would be 38% bigger than the Battroid's entire head, leaving no room for any of the many sensors that are needed for a Battroid to operate.

 

Wait a minute... a VF-1's head is only three feet square?!  I could have sworn it was a bit bigger than that!

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, pengbuzz said:

Wait a minute... a VF-1's head is only three feet square?!  I could have sworn it was a bit bigger than that!

Well, 3.28... but yes.  It's hard to picture because people tend to think Giant Robots are inherently ENORMOUS so the scale tends to get distorted in fan art, but the head is only about the size of the pilot's chair as seen directly in DYRL?.  

Hell, the 12.68m (41'7") VF-1 Battroid as a whole is only a bit over 7x the height of a statistically average 1.8 meter (5'9") person.

[Big s]

3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That's pretty unlikely.  After all, the reason that the monitor turrets of Battroids are armed with laser weapons instead of conventional anti-aircraft cannons is that, back when the SDF Macross series was in development, Kawamori et. al. realized pretty early on that a Battroid's head was going to be far too small to plausibly fit a then-modern air-to-air machine gun like the F-14's M61A1 Vulcan or the Panavia Tornado's BK-27 and enough ammunition to make it remotely usable.

  Hide contents

To put it in perspective, the VF-1's head (minus laser cannons) has a footprint of about 1 cubic meter.  In its most compact and space-efficient configuration, the M61A1 is 1.83m long, 0.65m wide, and about 1.16m tall.  The gun alone would be 38% bigger than the Battroid's entire head, leaving no room for any of the many sensors that are needed for a Battroid to operate.

It's been a bit of a creator's in-joke ever since... so much so that the VF-0 Master File directly references it as an in-universe design obstacle the Stonewell Bellcom team working on the VF-0 encountered in the 2000s.

 

In a way, you could say Macross's insistence on head-mounted energy weapons is a rebuke of Gundam's infamously useless "head vulcans"...

  Hide contents

Gundam's RX-78 Gundam could get away with having two 60mm rotary cannons in the head because it's much bigger (18m as opposed to 12m), doesn't have to make any accommodations for transformation (so no need for local power storage), and contains only a handful of sensors (two internal binocular cameras, two exterior monocular cameras, one short-ranged radar, and some directional microphones), and gives most of the back of the head over to the ammo drums. 

Even then, those 60mm cannons only have enough ammunition for about 15 seconds of fully automatic fire and the rounds themselves aren't powerful enough to reliably inflict meaningful damage on enemy mobile suits at close range.

The Gundam gave most of its head over to this massive pair of cannons that were, in the final analysis, only really good for annoying other Mobile Suit pilots, harassing infantry, and shooting down the occasional plane.

By sticking with laser or particle beam weapons, the Battroid has a coaxial gun that will never run out of ammunition and can be plausibly made powerful enough to inflict meaningful damage because their main design constraint is power availability.  It also retains enough space for all the optics and other sensors the Battroid requires to go about its business.

That’s kinda why I was thinking it may be something like a connection point for recharging the beam weapon. Definitely too small for anti Valkyrie use weapons, although anti personnel is an odd stretch. But a connection point either for stability or recharge. Maybe it heats up during recharge and is why it has vents behind that point, but I’m really no expert 

[RangerKarl]

On 12/6/2025 at 9:20 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not to say that there haven't been similarly bonkers weapons tossed out in newer material.  The VF-22 Master File introduces a Strike Pack beam cannon for the VF-22 that's a scaled-down version of a Zentradi warship's guided focusing beam cannon.  It uses a dedicated compact thermonuclear reactor to vaporize heavy metals in order to use launch that vapor as a high-velocity particle beam with an output power in the hundreds of megawatts.

That engineer took Casaba Howitzer a little too literally.

[Master Dex]

On 12/6/2025 at 5:20 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

That's not to say that there haven't been similarly bonkers weapons tossed out in newer material.  The VF-22 Master File introduces a Strike Pack beam cannon for the VF-22 that's a scaled-down version of a Zentradi warship's guided focusing beam cannon.  It uses a dedicated compact thermonuclear reactor to vaporize heavy metals in order to use launch that vapor as a high-velocity particle beam with an output power in the hundreds of megawatts.

This is essentially the Thanix magnetohydrodynamic cannon in Mass Effect which is also pretty bonkers. Though since it was sourced from the corpse of an Eldritch alien space mech that kinda tracks.

[Seto Kaiba]

2 hours ago, Master Dex said:

This is essentially the Thanix magnetohydrodynamic cannon in Mass Effect which is also pretty bonkers. Though since it was sourced from the corpse of an Eldritch alien space mech that kinda tracks.

Which is itself, like most particle beam concepts, ultimately based on the "Teleforce" weapon concept that Nikola Tesla conceived in 1934 in a bid to secure funding from J.P. Morgan Jr. and later described in his 1937 treatise The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-Dispersive Energy Through The Natural Media.  Some of the only actual science to come out of the scientific community's "Death ray" craze in the 1920s and 30s.

Nikola Tesla's original practical proposal for a charged particle beam weapon was for a metallic ion particle beam using mercury or tungsten vapor.

 

Macross seems to have at least four, possibly five, different flavors of particle beam weaponry kicking around based on my deep dive into energy weapons.  Macross Chronicle seems to imply there are two different kinds of charged particle beam weapon.  Technology Sheet 10A "Beam Weaponry" seems to imply that there are two distinct kinds of charged particle beam weapon.  It mentions that ship-based and destroid-based beam weapons fire charged heavy metal particles.  The implication, supported by Master File, seems to be that VFs or battle pods do not and use charged particles from their compact thermonuclear reactors instead.  It also lumps impact cannons and fluid plasma cannons under particle beams, but it remains unclear what an impact cannon is beyond not being a dimensional beam weapon. 😕 

Master File poses the interesting prospect that the particle beam cannons on Zentradi ships are something akin to a laser-coupled charged particle beam cannon that serendipitously uses a laser produced by vaporizing tungsten in the compact thermonuclear reactor to help cohere the metallic particle beam after it's launched by the GICs.

Possibly the weirdest thing that's come out of this deep dive has been an explanation for why the VF-31AX's container is so damn huge.  It's a massive energy capacitor driving the rear-facing laser cannon and the beam gunpod.

[Seto Kaiba]

Moving this over from the Books topic.

20 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

I guess if the VF-31 was a solution to the Brisingr Globular Cluster's budget being what it is, it could make sense if a ISC equipped VF-19 was to replace their VF-171 stock before the Kairos was realized as a better viable option to sell locally.

It'd perhaps be more accurate to say the VF-31 was seen as a solution to some of the Brisingr Alliance's economic woes.

The VF-31's particular situation is heavily inspired by Japan's own domestic Next Main Fighter program (the Mitsubishi ATD-X/X-2/F-2).

Another build-under-license agreement like the one they had for the VF-171 was certainly feasible, but the Brisingr Alliance was attracted to the idea of domestic development of a next-generation Main Variable Fighter to replace the VF-171 because it was a way to stimulate the cluster's economy and create jobs, to improve their defense autonomy with less dependence on outside governments and corporations for military hardware, and as a potential source of revenue via export sales to other governments.

The VF-19 might have been cheaper, but it would also probably not have been as attractive an option since its performance was much lower than true 5th Generation fighters and it would be another build-under-license agreement they'd be paying another government for.

 

20 minutes ago, TG Remix said:

Does kind of make me wonder what would a production 6th Gen VF be in that case, since those two are the closest things the franchise has to Gundam tier superweapons.

Master File has some thoughts on that, though they mostly amount to a four-engine version of the VF-31AX ala the YF-29.

Edited December 8 by Seto Kaiba

[RangerKarl]

VFMF seems to have an obsession with capacitors in general, it feels like. 

I suppose so many energy hungry things live on a Valkyrie, so it makes sense.

 

[Seto Kaiba]

10 hours ago, RangerKarl said:

VFMF seems to have an obsession with capacitors in general, it feels like. 

I suppose so many energy hungry things live on a Valkyrie, so it makes sense.

'lil bit, yeah.  

Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.1 describes the four key overtechnologies that made Variable Fighters possible as:

1. Compact thermonuclear reactors
2. Energy conversion armor
3. Superconducting drive motors
4. Energy capacitors

Two of the four are essentially the VF's power generation and distribution system, and the other two being two of the three most energy-hungry systems.

Speaking as an engineer, as cool and "sci-fi" as 1 and 2 sound it's 3 and 4 that would turn the f***ing world upside-down.  Mass production room temperature superconductors and lossless energy storage?  The ability to send power anywhere with negligible line losses and store it until it's needed without conversion losses would revolutionize the power grid and anything/everything electronic.  Even the best batteries lose about 5-7% of the power they store in the conversion process and we lose around 8% of the power we generate in the process of transmitting it to where it's going.  That's not counting storage losses as chemical batteries degrade.  You'd almost be able to abolish the power grid entirely for the residential user with high-efficiency home renewables.  Electric cars would charge in seconds and outrange gas cars easily.  Portable electronic lifespans would skyrocket.  The application of superconducting motors to generator systems would be insane in its own right, with huge efficiency and output jumps from things like hydroelectric and wind farm generators.

Adding clean, limitless thermonuclear power to that... well... yikes.  The entire world's peak energy demand could be satisfied by just a handful of ship-scale reactor systems.

Of course, most sources would generally agree that the heart and soul of most OTM is actually Gravity and Inertia Control... since that's essential for the operation of compact thermonuclear reactors, artificial gravity, fold navigation, fold communication, cross-dimension radar, active stealth, beam weapons, and a variety of other systems.

Edited December 9 by Seto Kaiba

[kajnrig]

On 12/7/2025 at 2:56 PM, pengbuzz said:

Wait a minute... a VF-1's head is only three feet square?!  I could have sworn it was a bit bigger than that!

On 12/7/2025 at 4:22 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, 3.28... but yes.

Just to be clear, a cubic meter is roughly 36 cubic feet, not 3. (Each face is 11 square feet.) The measurements you gave for the gatling give ~1.38 cubic meters/~50 cubic feet.

The point still stands, just correcting the maths.

 

Anyway, I always thought the Vajra creating bio-missiles was kind of stupid and impossible, but I never should have doubted the ability of nature to provide precedent. (Relevant section starts at 10:30, with context at 9:30.)

 

Edited December 9 by kajnrig

[Seto Kaiba]

35 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Just to be clear, a cubic meter is roughly 36 cubic feet, not 3. (Each face is 11 square feet.) The measurements you gave for the gatling give ~1.38 cubic meters/~50 cubic feet.

The point still stands, just correcting the maths.

As a point of linguistic clarity, "three feet square" is not interchangeable with "three square feet".  They mean different things.

"Three square feet" is a measurement of area (any shape).  "Three feet square" means a square area with a side length of 3 feet (and an area of 9 square feet).

The math error I corrected was approximating a meter to 3 feet instead of 3.3 or 3.28 as one normally would depending on how fussy one is about rounding.

 

35 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Anyway, I always thought the Vajra creating bio-missiles was kind of stupid and impossible, but I never should have doubted the ability of nature to provide precedent. (Relevant section starts at 10:30, with context at 9:30.)

 

Oh yeah, if you want biological warheads look no further than plants... there's a whole bunch of them that engage in "ballistic seed dispersal".  Literally creating exploding fruit or seed pods.  The sandbox tree is the poster child for this one, having earned itself the righteous nickname of "the dynamite tree" from the noise of its fruit exploding and flinging seeds as far as 100m fragmentation grenade style.

 

 

 

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Just to be clear, a cubic meter is roughly 36 cubic feet, not 3. (Each face is 11 square feet.) The measurements you gave for the gatling give ~1.38 cubic meters/~50 cubic feet.

The point still stands, just correcting the maths.

 

Anyway, I always thought the Vajra creating bio-missiles was kind of stupid and impossible, but I never should have doubted the ability of nature to provide precedent. (Relevant section starts at 10:30, with context at 9:30.)

 

 

Sorry... my dyslexia acting up. Some days it can be a royal pain, and it got worse after my TBI. In my case, the words appear in different places, as opposed to the letters doing so.

Edited December 9 by pengbuzz

[Big s]

11 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

As a point of linguistic clarity, "three feet square" is not interchangeable with "three square feet".  They mean different things.

"Three square feet" is a measurement of area (any shape).  "Three feet square" means a square area with a side length of 3 feet (and an area of 9 square feet).

The math error I corrected was approximating a meter to 3 feet instead of 3.3 or 3.28 as one normally would depending on how fussy one is about rounding.

It’s ok bro, I knew what you were saying. No need to try and get too mathematical here, I’m a Macross fan not a mathematician 

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, Big s said:

It’s ok bro, I knew what you were saying. No need to try and get too mathematical here, I’m a Macross fan not a mathematician 

I'm not the one who said it, though. 😆

But hey, I'm a Macross fan and an engineer... getting "too mathematical" is a fair description of my day job and my hobby.  (Doubly so given that my specialism was cryptosystems, which even the computer science folks think is too much math.) 😆

 

On the math-y front, I am mildly frightened by the Master File's description of the VF-22's GCA-27R GIC-focused laser cannon.  Not only does it allegedly dispense toxic gas during the firing process (I'm guessing another deuterium fluoride laser like the RO-2A), its range is such that a VF-22 equipped with this weapon is said to be able to hit fast-moving targets at a distance of 1.2 light seconds (that's 359,751km) and against stationary or inertial-coasting targets is 4.2 light seconds (1,259,126km).  There's something fundamentally wrong about a fighter-mounted weapon that can effectively strafe targets on the moon from Earth orbit.  The fact that both the GCA-27S and GCA-27R look like prototypes for the VF-27's BGP-01 is not lost on me either... 🤔

Why a fighter would need range like that is anyone's guess.  At that point, just mount the gun on a freaking ship and have done with it.  (Indeed, the section suggests the GCA-27S was originally developed for warship use!)

[aurance]

22 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

 

Sorry... my dyslexia acting up. Some days it can be a royal pain, and it got worse after my TBI. In my case, the words appear in different places, as opposed to the letters doing so.

Lol you were actually correct, my friend. Three feet square is right. The other guy read it incorrectly.

[pengbuzz]

2 hours ago, aurance said:

Lol you were actually correct, my friend. Three feet square is right. The other guy read it incorrectly.

oh, ok. 😀

[RangerKarl]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Why a fighter would need range like that is anyone's guess.  At that point, just mount the gun on a freaking ship and have done with it.  (Indeed, the section suggests the GCA-27S was originally developed for warship use!)

Deniable wetworks is my first thought. It is a VF designed to precisely attack targets deep inside enemy lines without resorting to reaction weapons, after all. This sort of headhunter work sounds in line with SuperNova specifications

[aurance]

On 12/10/2025 at 9:23 PM, RangerKarl said:

Deniable wetworks is my first thought. It is a VF designed to precisely attack targets deep inside enemy lines without resorting to reaction weapons, after all. This sort of headhunter work sounds in line with SuperNova specifications

This would be a pretty limited scenario, presumably only against rebel colonists or other protoculture sub-races (which all seem to be fairly primitive). I don't think action against Zentradi or Supervision Army forces would need any deniability.