Seto Kaiba Posted July 13 Posted July 13 48 minutes ago, Big s said: Not sure if it’s a question that’s been answered, but was wondering about the pack in the right hip of the Nousjadeul Ger armors. Seems to be a similar pack with both the movie and tv show versions. The one in the left hip seems to be a simple armor piece, but the right side looks very different. According to Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet SDFM TV Zentradi 03A "Nousjadeul-Ger", it's a magazine case meant to hold reloads for the Nousjadeul-Ger's handheld weapons like the laser machine pistol it normally wields. 47 minutes ago, TehPW said: Here's a idea about the UNMC: Are they supposed to be ground-based ie Destroids and Regults? One would presume the UN Marine Corps would be primarily naval infantry, with armored and aerial support as appropriate... though we have almost no way of confirming that. There are precious few sources that actually mention the UN Marine Corps. The oldest, the Sky Angels VF-1 Valkyrie tech manual, mentions that there were a substantial number of Marines stationed aboard the SLV-111 Daedalus. Not as Destroid operators, but as a naval infantry force supported by a number of marine aviators to man the helicopters, fighters, and support craft carried aboard the ship. Sky Angels also asserts that there were UN Marine fighter and fighter/attack squadrons using the VF-1 Valkyrie. Macross Zero does show one UN Marine Corps soldier named Katie training with the VF-0 pilots and indicates she's going to be training on a VF-0. Official media does mention the Marine Corps had a purpose-made VF-0 variant of their own (the VF-0C). Hasegawa did a model kit for it back in the day, and the markings they chose to give it were those of UN Marine Corps model conversion training squadron VMFAT-203 Hawks. The Hawks are noted to have been a Hawaii-based squadron that had a number of aircraft stationed aboard SLV-111 Daedalus in 2008. The Hawks transitioned to the VF-1 Valkyrie in 2009 and trained Marine Corps aviators on the fighter for a brief time before being transferred to being a Spacy Marine Corps squadron under the designation SVFM-31 (probably supposed to be SVMF-31) for a period of about two years until they were again reorganized by the newly established New UN Forces and became a Spacy squadron as SVF-31. I wonder if the regular Marine Corps simply got absorbed by, or is interchangeable with, the Spacy Marine Corps past a certain point? Quote
Big s Posted July 13 Posted July 13 18 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said: According to Macross Chronicle Mechanic Sheet SDFM TV Zentradi 03A "Nousjadeul-Ger", it's a magazine case meant to hold reloads for the Nousjadeul-Ger's handheld weapons like the laser machine pistol it normally wields. I could see something like that for the movie version, since it’s not clear how the ammo feeds into the pistol, but the drum on the tv version appears too big for the pack Quote
pengbuzz Posted July 13 Posted July 13 2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: I'm pretty sure they care at least a little, since they have mentioned the Dancing Skulls in other volumes and the references to the VF-3000's classified deployment to Special Forces units is pretty clearly a reference to Macross M3. That said, I'd assume the Neo York Liberation League probably didn't purchase their VF-3000s from Shinsei Industry and wouldn't be mentioned among their legitimate/intended customers. Of course there is also the possibility that the VF-3000s in Macross M3 are being retroactively identified as PMC craft hired by the Liberation League. Cost-effectiveness was certainly a priority for a lot of 2nd Generation VFs, but I think a solid argument can be made that cost-effectiveness was just one of several shifting priorities which were part of the larger generational objective of developing VFs around the evolving (and at the time poorly-understood) needs of early emigrant fleets and planets. Early 2nd Generation Variable Fighters like the VF-X-3, VF-4, and VF-3000 don't mention cost or ease of manufacture as a primary design objective. The VF-X-3 was lost during the First Space War but was said to have performance exceeding that of even the VF-4. The VF-4 and VF-3000 were both designed to address the shortcomings of the original VF-1 in space operations. Larger airframes with more room for internal propellant tanks and sub-engine systems. Larger and longer-ranged energy weapons to reduce their dependence on limited ammunition. Improved live support systems in the event of the craft being disabled or destroyed, to preserve the life of the pilot as long as possible while waiting for a rescue. Both of those models were introduced around the time of the very first emigrant fleet launches. Those 2nd Generation designs that entered development or service after Humanity started to discover habitable planets are the ones that, surely not coincidentally, are described with statements like "inexpensive" and "easily manufactured on developing emigrant planets". Once emigrant fleets started actually finding habitable worlds that they could start colonizing right away, suddenly the need wasn't just for big Valkyries with high operational endurance in space. Now they also needed something light and inexpensive that they could use for planetside service. Something they could manufacture on the cheap without jeopardizing their development plans for the planet's surface. So from there, we get a bevy of low-cost, low-complexity solutions like the VF-5, VF-6, VF-7, VF-5000, and finally VF-9 that all served as supplements to the VF-4. Both Macross Chronicle and Master File generally agree that the thing that did the most damage to the VF-3000's prospects was the fact that it was essentially Stonewell Bellcom (later Shinsei Industry) competing against itself unnecessarily. The company already had a largely complete next-generation main Variable Fighter program focusing on improved space performance under active testing with the New UN Forces... the VF-4 Lightning III. If Master File is correct the VF-3000 may have served as an important test that the newly formed Shinsei Industry was up to the job of continuing VF development and manufacture for the New UN Forces (the VF-4 having been mostly a prewar program), but the final product was still basically redundant as a competitor to a design the New UN Forces had already decided to adopt. Based on what's said in the Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy novelization, the events of Macross the Ride straight-up created a market for replicas of those old model VFs. Not only are there other cases of replicas being built, there's supposedly a direct causal relationship between the two. In Macross 30's novel version, Leon mentions in passing that the VF-0 Phoenix in SMS's possession - the one Leon gets stuck with in the game version's tutorial - is a replica which was produced commercially to capitalize on the popularity of a particular Vanquish League racer's replica VF-0 from two years prior. The only VF-0 that competed in the league in 2058 was Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 "Sieg"/"Zeke", so apparently his participation made enough of a stir that someone (Shinsei?) decided to produce replica VF-0s with modern parts (from the VF-1C and VF-5000) for the civilian market. It wouldn't be at all surprising if Magdalena Zielonaska's SV-52γ, which participated in the league for far longer than Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 did, created a similar stir and demand for a commercially-available replica machine. Replica SV-51s are found on Uroboros in 2060, and someone has to be making them and selling them to civilians. It wouldn't be all that surprising if they were already commercially available before 2060 and the manufacturer was engaged with the film's production as a product placement or something. As far as we know, yeah... the 2059 film Bird Human was the first time the recently-declassified events of the Mayan Island incident were dramatized. I'd assume the films Master File is referring to here are dramatizations of other incidents previously mentioned in Master File or possibly other sources like Macross the First. They don't specify, though. There are at least two other major engagements mentioned... the attack on Grand Cannon III in Africa and the ill-fated plan to attack the UN Forces HQ at Grand Cannon I in Alaska that was almost literally foiled before it could get off the ground. Incidentally, I'm told the remark about the one time the VF-3000 played the role of the SV-51 by being painted black is almost certainly meant to be a reference to Top Gun, which used US Navy F-5E's painted black as the fictional "MiG-28". Very dubious indeed. Epsilon Foundation absolutely has access to the Sv-303 since they make the bloody things, but regular enemies? In Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!! they're presented as a production (or production-intent) unmanned fighter that outclasses even the 5.5th Generation VF-31 Siegfried and Sv-262 Draken III. Even Xaos's VF-31AX Kairos Plus - which Master File asserts are a hasty and incomplete conversion of the VF-31 Siegfried into a experimental/developmental 6th Generation test machine - were only barely able to keep up with them one-on-one. Max's 6th Generation YF-29 was the only machine that really outclassed them... which probably owes at least as much to Max's own over-the-top specs as it does the YF-29's. 😆 Eh... I mean, that was kind of already explicitly the case going the other way from the YF-29's introduction in Macross Frontier: the Wings of Goodbye. Fold quartz in general is quite rare. It does occur in nature, but it's implied that the vast majority of what's out there is synthesized either by the Vajra or the Protoculture. The 5th Generation VFs like the VF-24, VF-25, VF-27, and VF-31 use the stuff sparingly and only where it's absolutely unavoidable. Namely, the Inertia Store Converter protecting the pilot from the incredible g-forces the fighter is capable of. The rest of its systems use high quality synthetic fold carbon. The fold quartz they use is of a size and purity that's common enough to make ISC systems with reliable output in bulk. Presumably it's similar in size to what we see them pulling out of Vajra carcasses... an oblong sliver of gemstone around three centimeters or so long. (Maybe 20 or so carats if we assume a comparably sized and shaped diamond?) In short, 5th Generation VFs can be mass produced precisely because their fold quartz is comparatively low quality enough to be accessible in bulk. The size and purity of fold quartz needed to make a working Fold Wave System for a 6th Generation VF is explicitly borderline Unobtainium, however. The YF-29's Fold Wave System needed four 1,000 carat pieces of ultra-high purity fold quartz to function. Sure, 1,000 carats is only 200 grams, but that's still a gemstone of about the same size as a regulation baseball at a purity level that Macross Frontier says can only be found in Vajra queens. Master File claims that reproducing the performance of Alto's original YF-29[A] is essentially impossible because fold quartz of the requisite size and purity simply does not exist in any accessible form and that all subsequent YF-29s are lower-performance copies of the original due to inferior fold quartz. Even ignoring Master File, such high-quality fold quartz is so impossibly rare that officially only a double handful of YF-29s have ever been built and they're all essentially irreplaceable. Macross Delta's VF-31 Siegfrieds and VF-31AX Kairos Pluses are equipped with an economized version of the FWS which uses less (and lower purity) fold quartz. The required material is still incredibly rare and expensive, but it's at least affordable enough for them to field half a dozen of their FWS-equipped custom VF-31s with reduced performance as the main consequence. (Master File alleges this version of the FWS also needs an external fold wave source to operate.) Eh... I think that still creates the problem of having a unit of invincible godmode sues whose VFs have no limits. AKA Gundam. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 14 Posted July 14 58 minutes ago, Big s said: I could see something like that for the movie version, since it’s not clear how the ammo feeds into the pistol, but the drum on the tv version appears too big for the pack In some of the line art, it looks like that case might almost be large enough to hold one of the drums... but we don't actually know that the drum is the laser machine pistol's magazine, or where the magazine is. 53 minutes ago, pengbuzz said: AKA Gundam. Pretty much, yeah. The 6th Generation prototypes veer heavily towards Gundam-style Super Prototype territory heavily enough as it is. The main thing keeping them from actually getting there is that they're held in reserve as an 11th Hour Powerup for the story's climax rather than being the main mecha, and that in-story the developers absolutely intended to mass produce them as-is instead of watering them down into a much weaker production machine. Quote
JB0 Posted July 14 Posted July 14 10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: and that in-story the developers absolutely intended to mass produce them as-is instead of watering them down into a much weaker production machine. That's a cliche I've never really understood. Surely the point of trialing a prototype is to find out if it meets performance expectations and is fit for purpose. Adopting a machine that WASN'T trialed based on the performance of the machine you tested just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like if the US had tested the YF-22 and then bought the F-35A because the -22 tested so well, instead of testing the YF-35. Quote
Master Dex Posted July 14 Posted July 14 1 hour ago, JB0 said: That's a cliche I've never really understood. Surely the point of trialing a prototype is to find out if it meets performance expectations and is fit for purpose. Adopting a machine that WASN'T trialed based on the performance of the machine you tested just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like if the US had tested the YF-22 and then bought the F-35A because the -22 tested so well, instead of testing the YF-35. Accurate, there is a real use case for doing the Gundam thing though, and that's called a technology demonstrator. It's a unit full of new and experimental stuff designed to trial things out and figure out how to apply then to production and other prototypes. The tech demo itself is not designed to be a fielded unit, but sometimes it can take the shape of a super capable highly expensive unit. In truth doing it like this isn't economical and most tech will be tested piecemeal but it's an option to do it Gundam style. There is a pseudo example in Macross with the YF-30 which is in truth a tech demo for the Fold Dimensional Resonance system developed by Aisha Blanchette. To wit the flight unit is described not as a variable fighter but a variable super dimension diver. So why the YF code? In short, SMS didn't want to tell the NUNG about the specs and the laws of how VF prototypes work says they don't need to disclose details for production prototypes. So they lied. Obviously the events of Macross 30 ensured they got caught so the design became known, which indirectly led to the supposed YF-31 that became the Kairos by Surya Aerospace, which doesn't have the fancy tech in it of course. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 14 Posted July 14 (edited) 6 hours ago, JB0 said: That's a cliche I've never really understood. Surely the point of trialing a prototype is to find out if it meets performance expectations and is fit for purpose. Adopting a machine that WASN'T trialed based on the performance of the machine you tested just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's like if the US had tested the YF-22 and then bought the F-35A because the -22 tested so well, instead of testing the YF-35. As a trope/cliche, it has its origins in the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series as a sort of Drama Preserving Handicap. Mobile Suit Gundam was the first "real robot" subgenre mecha anime, and even though the series more or less established the idea of mass producing giant robots as weapons of war the titular mobile suit still had a lot of "super robot" DNA in it. The Gundam was a de facto one-of-a-kind hero mecha that singlehandedly changed the course of the war with its incredible capabilities. Its exotic super alloy armor made it nearly impervious to the enemy's weapons. Its beam rifle and beam sabers were so powerful they could destroy an enemy robot in a single hit. Its learning computer meant that it got better at fighting with every battle it fought and its kid pilot became a better fighter the more experience he gained. White Base's mission was to return the Gundam, Guncannon, and Guntank to the Federation Forces HQ on Earth so they could be analyzed and the data from them used to complete the Federation's mobile suit program. Resolving that thread of Gundam's plot posed a problem. They couldn't very well have the Gundam itself be mass produced without removing their hero mecha's visual distinctiveness and removing any prospects for future dramatic tension in the story. It wouldn't be much of a war once the Federation entered the fray with thousands of identical, nigh-invulnerable robots that could each take on whole squads of Zeon mobile suits at a time. So they created the GM as a "loser" version of the Gundam so the Gundam would remain special and visually distinctive and the Federation could have cannon fodder machines without having to bring the Gundam down to "normal" status. That's the Doylist explanation. The accompanying Watsonian explanation they cooked up to justify the GM's existence is that the Federation originally did intend to mass produce the RX-78 Gundam. The course of the war, the cost involved, and the immediacy of their need for large numbers of mobile suits in the field forced them to compromise and simplify their design to speed up production and get as many units in the field as quickly as possible. They started with the RX-78 Gundam's basic design and started removing everything that was not considered 100% necessary and/or a potential cost or time bottleneck in production. Luna titanium got the axe because it took too long to make and cost too much. Core Block functions were removed as unnecessary complexity. The simpler head design from the Guncannon was adopted because it was easier to manufacture, etc. The end result was the RGM-79 GM, a machine with higher performance than Zeon's flagship MS's but without the invincible hero properties of the Gundam. Had the Federation's need for mobile suits not been quite so immediate and urgent, they would have proceeded to mass produce the Gundam and the final stages of the war would likely have gone VERY differently (and a great deal worse for Zeon). Past that point, though... the writers kind of forget that aspect entirely and Gundams become one-off super machines that Anaheim Electronics makes to try out a new technology or simply because they have nothing better to do. The next few "real robot" titles kind of played with the idea of a mass-produced hero mecha, but ultimately avoided it through plot contrivances. Dougram had the titular mecha be set up for mass production but then the factory and blueprints were destroyed, leaving it a one-of-a-kind machine. Xabungle also implies that the Xabungle is a production machine but a very low volume one with only a handful made. It's not until Super Dimension Fortress Macross that we get our first real robot mecha anime with a truly mass-produced "hero" machine, eliminating the need for super prototypes or super prototype-like plot contrivances. Edited July 14 by Seto Kaiba Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 15 Posted July 15 12 hours ago, Master Dex said: Accurate, there is a real use case for doing the Gundam thing though, and that's called a technology demonstrator. It's a unit full of new and experimental stuff designed to trial things out and figure out how to apply then to production and other prototypes. The tech demo itself is not designed to be a fielded unit, but sometimes it can take the shape of a super capable highly expensive unit. In truth doing it like this isn't economical and most tech will be tested piecemeal but it's an option to do it Gundam style. Gundam almost never actually does that, though. The RX-78 was intended to be an actual prototype, but most of those that came after weren't even technology demonstrators. They were simply showy ace custom units that were in no way intended to refined into something practical, like the Double Zeta, the Nu, or the Unicorn. One of the few exceptions there is the RX-178 Gundam Mk.II from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, which was an actual production model that never got mass produced due to the Titans huffily cancelling their order after three of the four trial production units ended up in the AEUG's hands. The one infamous actually-mass-produced Gundam being the Victory from the series by the same name. 12 hours ago, Master Dex said: There is a pseudo example in Macross with the YF-30 which is in truth a tech demo for the Fold Dimensional Resonance system developed by Aisha Blanchette. To wit the flight unit is described not as a variable fighter but a variable super dimension diver. So why the YF code? In short, SMS didn't want to tell the NUNG about the specs and the laws of how VF prototypes work says they don't need to disclose details for production prototypes. So they lied. Obviously the events of Macross 30 ensured they got caught so the design became known, which indirectly led to the supposed YF-31 that became the Kairos by Surya Aerospace, which doesn't have the fancy tech in it of course. In both the game version and novel version of Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy, Aisha does imply that she (and by extension, SMS and the Shinsei Industry dev team) planned to take the YF-30 design into further development towards a production concept. (Aisha fairly gushes about how the container system's going to revolutionize Valkyrie design.) It's not so much that they didn't have a choice after the events of Macross 30, it's that they were always planning to market the YF-30's innovations not tied to Richard Bilra's personal obsession. The novel version mentions that various SMS branches have been collaborating with the defense industry in a way the military no longer can in order to get their foot in the door of that lucrative market for themselves. Quote
Master Dex Posted July 15 Posted July 15 9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Gundam almost never actually does that, though. The RX-78 was intended to be an actual prototype, but most of those that came after weren't even technology demonstrators. They were simply showy ace custom units that were in no way intended to refined into something practical, like the Double Zeta, the Nu, or the Unicorn. One of the few exceptions there is the RX-178 Gundam Mk.II from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, which was an actual production model that never got mass produced due to the Titans huffily cancelling their order after three of the four trial production units ended up in the AEUG's hands. The one infamous actually-mass-produced Gundam being the Victory from the series by the same name. I want really commenting on anything Gundam has done, I've watched two full Gundam series and neither of them are even UC lol. I just latched on to how Gundam does super prototypes to bring up what that sounds like in reality. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 15 Posted July 15 2 hours ago, Master Dex said: I want really commenting on anything Gundam has done, I've watched two full Gundam series and neither of them are even UC lol. I just latched on to how Gundam does super prototypes to bring up what that sounds like in reality. Topic aside, you should definitely give more of Gundam a whirl... some of mecha anime's greatest classics are in there. The original, Zeta, and Char's Counterattack for sure. WRT Gundam and the Super Prototypes trope, the original series may have more or less defined the trope but ironically almost no Gundam series actually USES it. The majority of Gundams in Gundam are basically bespoke ace custom machines rather than prototypes (super or otherwise) for any future machine or technology demonstrators. Spoiler The only ones I can think of offhand that are actually treated as technology demonstrators or prototypes are all from relatively early works... the original RX-78 (the prototype for the initial Federation mobile suit), the GP series units from Stardust Memory RX-178 from Zeta (prototypes for the movable frame and all-sky monitor), the Zeta (prototype transformable MS), Xi Gundam (prototype MS-scale Minovsky flight system), and the F91 (small scale MS and next generation fusion reactor prototype, or the "yes, I have lost my will to live and will happily sit directly in front of a hair trigger thermonuclear bomb" prototype). Macross thankfully treats its prototypes in a more realistic manner. The final prototype is usually identical to the initial mass production type, and the early prototypes for any given design are usually hacked-together and lower performance than the final model. (There is that weird corner case that is Macross Plus, though the performance difference there is more because two incredibly talented pilots turned unstable systems unsuitable for production into a sort of Disability Superpower.) Quote
PixelatedShinobi Posted July 15 Posted July 15 3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Topic aside, you should definitely give more of Gundam a whirl... some of mecha anime's greatest classics are in there. The original, Zeta, and Char's Counterattack for sure. It's rough being a ZZ fan out here. Quote
TG Remix Posted July 15 Posted July 15 (edited) On 7/13/2025 at 7:26 PM, Seto Kaiba said: I wonder if the regular Marine Corps simply got absorbed by, or is interchangeable with, the Spacy Marine Corps past a certain point? I wouldn't be surprised, since the two times we see the Spacy Marine Corps, not only they're Zentradi units but they're both stationed on planets as garrison units. And if you want to stretch it in a more liberal explanation of being a amphibious force, considering Marine Corps have operations done on the land and sea, I wouldn't be surprised if space was added in the mix for "amphibious" operations, like how sci-fi tends to have drop ships to land troops on planets from space. On a side note, was reminded of the MF render with a UN Spacy VF-1 flying alongside a few NUNS Marine branded Regults; I'm assuming this was suggesting that it's somewhat common for giant Zentradi units to be under that branch in the military? 6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: WRT Gundam and the Super Prototypes trope, the original series may have more or less defined the trope but ironically almost no Gundam series actually USES it. The majority of Gundams in Gundam are basically bespoke ace custom machines rather than prototypes (super or otherwise) for any future machine or technology demonstrators. Hide contents The only ones I can think of offhand that are actually treated as technology demonstrators or prototypes are all from relatively early works... the original RX-78 (the prototype for the initial Federation mobile suit), the GP series units from Stardust Memory RX-178 from Zeta (prototypes for the movable frame and all-sky monitor), the Zeta (prototype transformable MS), Xi Gundam (prototype MS-scale Minovsky flight system), and the F91 (small scale MS and next generation fusion reactor prototype, or the "yes, I have lost my will to live and will happily sit directly in front of a hair trigger thermonuclear bomb" prototype). Spoiler Crossbone Gundam seems to suggest the F91 itself got into limited production, albeit without the MEPE, Bio-Computer, and (at least initially) the Psycho-Frame removed since non-Newtypes weren't going to use its full potential like Seakbook did with his unit in the end of the movie. Whatever scrutiny you put Hasegawa's work in, I don't seem to mind that idea if the Crossbone Babylonia war actually continued as a story. If anything the F90 seems to be more of the technology demonstrator since not only it was evaluated against Anaheim's MS-120 for adoption for the Federation Forces, but most of its Mission Packs were to test technologies and even led to other units being built; such as the VSBR Type leading to the F91 itself, and the F90S Support Type leading to the F70 Cannon Gundam, which would be further simplified to the F71 G-Cannon. And because no one else will mention it lol, the G-Saviour lineage barring the PS2's video game's G3 Saviour seems to be in limited production, that's also including the I-Saviour and J-Saviour mobile suits. 3 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said: It's rough being a ZZ fan out here. Rough is an understatement, and I'm one of the 5 people on the planet that has it as some of my favorite Gundam works, much less prefer it over Zeta itself! Edited July 15 by TG Remix Quote
TG Remix Posted July 15 Posted July 15 Sorry for the double post, the forums didn't make me want to make a longer post! On 7/13/2025 at 4:53 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Those 2nd Generation designs that entered development or service after Humanity started to discover habitable planets are the ones that, surely not coincidentally, are described with statements like "inexpensive" and "easily manufactured on developing emigrant planets". Once emigrant fleets started actually finding habitable worlds that they could start colonizing right away, suddenly the need wasn't just for big Valkyries with high operational endurance in space. Now they also needed something light and inexpensive that they could use for planetside service. Something they could manufacture on the cheap without jeopardizing their development plans for the planet's surface. So from there, we get a bevy of low-cost, low-complexity solutions like the VF-5, VF-6, VF-7, VF-5000, and finally VF-9 that all served as supplements to the VF-4. Honestly I'd love a series that focuses on a colony fleet researching the viability of a habitable world, especially early on since this made me think how inexperienced they'd be in terms of dealing with an entirely new ecosystem as well as juggling ergonomics and economics alongside that, On 7/13/2025 at 4:53 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Based on what's said in the Macross 30: Voices Across the Galaxy novelization, the events of Macross the Ride straight-up created a market for replicas of those old model VFs. Not only are there other cases of replicas being built, there's supposedly a direct causal relationship between the two. In Macross 30's novel version, Leon mentions in passing that the VF-0 Phoenix in SMS's possession - the one Leon gets stuck with in the game version's tutorial - is a replica which was produced commercially to capitalize on the popularity of a particular Vanquish League racer's replica VF-0 from two years prior. The only VF-0 that competed in the league in 2058 was Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 "Sieg"/"Zeke", so apparently his participation made enough of a stir that someone (Shinsei?) decided to produce replica VF-0s with modern parts (from the VF-1C and VF-5000) for the civilian market. It wouldn't be at all surprising if Magdalena Zielonaska's SV-52γ, which participated in the league for far longer than Hakuna Aoba's VF-0改 did, created a similar stir and demand for a commercially-available replica machine. Replica SV-51s are found on Uroboros in 2060, and someone has to be making them and selling them to civilians. It wouldn't be all that surprising if they were already commercially available before 2060 and the manufacturer was engaged with the film's production as a product placement or something. Wouldn't be surprised if The Ride's events sparked that interest, though considering the Frontier's movie novelization had Octos Bis under military usage and presumably those being replica units with advanced weapons on top, it almost seems like the "lost" technology from the Unification War period wasn't all that lost as believed. Though admittedly, a part of that is me wanting Sv-52-like units popping up in the universe in between the time between SW1 and The Ride. On 7/13/2025 at 4:53 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Fold quartz in general is quite rare. It does occur in nature, but it's implied that the vast majority of what's out there is synthesized either by the Vajra or the Protoculture. The 5th Generation VFs like the VF-24, VF-25, VF-27, and VF-31 use the stuff sparingly and only where it's absolutely unavoidable. Namely, the Inertia Store Converter protecting the pilot from the incredible g-forces the fighter is capable of. The rest of its systems use high quality synthetic fold carbon. The fold quartz they use is of a size and purity that's common enough to make ISC systems with reliable output in bulk. Presumably it's similar in size to what we see them pulling out of Vajra carcasses... an oblong sliver of gemstone around three centimeters or so long. (Maybe 20 or so carats if we assume a comparably sized and shaped diamond? Does kinda make me wonder, fold quartz are said to be a natural resource, and we get a whole conflict around that with the Windemeran War of Independence. Makes me think if about the detailing of fold quartz's discovery on other planets and asteroids circa around VF-X2's time; goodness forbid they're also home of autonomous governments who don't necessarily agree with the central government's ways (not just Windemere, since VF-X2's Vulcan and M3's Cristrania has existed at least a decade before Latence put pressure on governments who didn't side with Earth's policies.) Quote
Big s Posted July 15 Posted July 15 2 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said: It's rough being a ZZ fan out here. 1 hour ago, TG Remix said: Rough is an understatement, and I'm one of the 5 people on the planet that has it as some of my favorite Gundam works, much less prefer it over Zeta itself! I love ZZ as well, although not more than zeta or the 90‘s Ova’s. Although Zeta is an odd one due to characters, ZZ is an odd one due to extreme tonal shift. I kinda think of ZZ as almost an equivalent of Macross 7 where once you get through a certain amount of bs episodes, it becomes really enjoyable for what it is Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 16 Posted July 16 3 hours ago, PixelatedShinobi said: It's rough being a ZZ fan out here. Can I get a blurry, out-of-focus picture of you to go with the photos of the other cryptids? (I joke, there are plenty of Gundam ZZ fans out there! It's not my favorite, but it's a worthy installment in the UC and in some ways a breath of fresh air after Tomino's relentlessly grim ending to Zeta. I picked those three in particular because they're usually held up as the most impactful... the OG series, the highest-rated series, and that one movie nobody ever stops referencing.) 2 hours ago, TG Remix said: I wouldn't be surprised, since the two times we see the Spacy Marine Corps, not only they're Zentradi units but they're both stationed on planets as garrison units. And if you want to stretch it in a more liberal explanation of being a amphibious force, considering Marine Corps have operations done on the land and sea, I wouldn't be surprised if space was added in the mix for "amphibious" operations, like how sci-fi tends to have drop ships to land troops on planets from space. Yeah, that's a pretty reasonable assumption IMO. The NUNS Marines would probably be infantry stationed on the Spacy's warships as well as providing orbit-to-surface work. Kind of the whole "space marine" gimmick anyway. 2 hours ago, TG Remix said: On a side note, was reminded of the MF render with a UN Spacy VF-1 flying alongside a few NUNS Marine branded Regults; I'm assuming this was suggesting that it's somewhat common for giant Zentradi units to be under that branch in the military? So, when you mentioned this it occurred to me to go look it up and see what the caption on the image had to say. For those interested, that picture can be found in the VF-1X/P section on page 090 of Variable Fighter Master File: VF-1 Valkyrie Vol.2. All three pictures on that page, as well as the two pictures on the next page, appear to depict the same aircraft... a VF-1P Valkyrie with modex 406 and tailcode ZZ. The top image from page 091 shows it's attached to SVC-131, a Spacy composite squadron. The caption on the picture with the two Regults says that it's an aircraft of the Planet Zola Defense Forces, that the Regults it's flying next to are from the UN Spacy Marine Corps, and that both units are en route to a training area for joint exercises. (SVC-131 is presumably an aggressor squadron.) 2 hours ago, TG Remix said: Honestly I'd love a series that focuses on a colony fleet researching the viability of a habitable world, especially early on since this made me think how inexperienced they'd be in terms of dealing with an entirely new ecosystem as well as juggling ergonomics and economics alongside that, That would make for an interesting series... you could easily work some VF combat into that if there are rogue Zentradi nearby, or the planet is home to some large fauna that are potentially dangerous like on Gubaba's homeworld or the planet from Macross E. 2 hours ago, TG Remix said: Wouldn't be surprised if The Ride's events sparked that interest, though considering the Frontier's movie novelization had Octos Bis under military usage and presumably those being replica units with advanced weapons on top, it almost seems like the "lost" technology from the Unification War period wasn't all that lost as believed. Though admittedly, a part of that is me wanting Sv-52-like units popping up in the universe in between the time between SW1 and The Ride. The Octos bis is perhaps a bit more explicable. Macross Chronicle notes that the factory producing the Octos for the Anti-Unification Alliance was found and pressed back into service by the UN Forces after the Unification Wars ended. They note that a further 28 Octos units were produced and delivered to the UN Forces before the line was destroyed in the First Space War. Presumably whichever one of the UN Forces defense contractors assumed control of the factory between the Unification Wars and First Space War was able to preserve the design the same way they preserved those of the destroids developed for the UN Forces. Given that Master File suggests both the VF-0 and SV-51 became "phantom" aircraft after the First Space War, presumably much less (or nothing) survived of the specifications or production lines for the VF-0 and SV-51. (Master File has a whole section devoted to Shinsei Industry having to essentially reverse-engineer the VF-0 back into existence based on the wreckage of several VF-0s that were shot down during Macross Zero that was found in a cargo container years after the First Space War. The same was presumably true for the SV-51.) 2 hours ago, TG Remix said: Does kinda make me wonder, fold quartz are said to be a natural resource, and we get a whole conflict around that with the Windemeran War of Independence. Makes me think if about the detailing of fold quartz's discovery on other planets and asteroids circa around VF-X2's time; goodness forbid they're also home of autonomous governments who don't necessarily agree with the central government's ways (not just Windemere, since VF-X2's Vulcan and M3's Cristrania has existed at least a decade before Latence put pressure on governments who didn't side with Earth's policies.) I'm not sure I'd call it a natural resource, at least in the context Humanity and other species are finding it in... Protoculture ruins, old Vajra nests, and Vajra carcasses. Considering where fold quartz is typically found, and that the restrictions on the mining and trade in fold quartz seem to have come about as a result of the Vajra conflict, I'd expect there probably wasn't too much grumbling. The Vajra had all but effortlessly destroyed one of the wealthiest and most heavily armed emigrant fleets in existence, beat the snot out of another, and then attacked a bunch of New UN Government member worlds before the Galaxy fleet's conspirators were stopped. Nobody wants another war with the Vajra. The story of Macross Delta also mentions the New UN Gov't heavily restricts and regulates the mining and trading of fold quartz and banned the use of dimension bombs in war without New UN Gov't approval, suggesting there was probably broad consensus that fold quartz and weapons based on it needed to be tightly controlled to avoid disaster. (Leading right to Cromwell's discontent over the limits placed on the usage of such weapons and other potentially useful technology.) Quote
aurance Posted July 16 Posted July 16 Zentradi. We know there are millions of fleets out there. Do they keep producing more until they’ve stripped local resources and move on, i.e. ecophagy, or do they have some sort of built-in equilibrium algorithm? Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 16 Posted July 16 (edited) 2 hours ago, aurance said: Zentradi. We know there are millions of fleets out there. According to Exsedol (and Macross Chronicle), there are somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 Main Fleets active in the galaxy c.2010. These fleets range in size from several hundred thousand to several million warships each. 2 hours ago, aurance said: Do they keep producing more until they’ve stripped local resources and move on, i.e. ecophagy, or do they have some sort of built-in equilibrium algorithm? We don't know. Macross Chronicle describes the automated factory satellites as being supported by a fleet of robot ships that mine the necessary resources and warehouse satellites that store the raw material until the production lines need it. The Mechanic Sheet for the Factory Satellite seen in the SDF Macross TV series has a section that notes there are some factory satellites which are outfitted with their own fold systems, while others that are located in resource-rich areas lack them. The implication there seems to be that some factory satellites need to periodically relocate to obtain the resources they require to continue operating (and/or chase the fleets they're supporting), while others are so efficient and/or in such resource-rich environments that there is no realistic prospect of local resources running out during the facility's lifespan. Considering how resource-rich space actually is... it's unlikely the galaxy is in any danger of being picked clean by the Zentradi in any timescale Humans can comprehend. EDIT: Whether the Zentradi (and/or Supervision Army) recycle is another matter entirely. The Zentradi are known to have a rescue and recovery pod of sorts, and we've seen surprisingly little in the way of wreckage from Zentradi ships and mecha in later stories. If they're recovering and recycling corpses and battle pods and maybe even ships to reprocess the material that help the resource situation a bit too. Edited July 16 by Seto Kaiba A thought occurred... Quote
sketchley Posted July 17 Posted July 17 7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: EDIT: Whether the Zentradi (and/or Supervision Army) recycle is another matter entirely. The Zentradi are known to have a rescue and recovery pod of sorts, and we've seen surprisingly little in the way of wreckage from Zentradi ships and mecha in later stories. If they're recovering and recycling corpses and battle pods and maybe even ships to reprocess the material that help the resource situation a bit too. That's a very intriguing thought. It certainly makes a lot of sense to recover and recycle damaged and ruined ships (et al), as that arguably requires less expenditure than mining, extracting, smelting and so on to create metallic alloys. At the very least, they'd have a higher level of certainty in their estimates of what materials they are likely to acquire. 🤔 Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 18 Posted July 18 23 hours ago, sketchley said: That's a very intriguing thought. It certainly makes a lot of sense to recover and recycle damaged and ruined ships (et al), as that arguably requires less expenditure than mining, extracting, smelting and so on to create metallic alloys. At the very least, they'd have a higher level of certainty in their estimates of what materials they are likely to acquire. 🤔 The amazing recycling technology that Humanity uses to make its emigrant fleets so efficient and long-term sustainable had to come from somewhere... and we know the New UN Gov't has put a lot into studying and restoring factory satellites. Maybe one use-case for the fold-capable factory satellites is to move them into the vicinity of old battlefields and have their robot ships hoover up the wreckage and debris in order to break down the composites, alloys, and organic compounds from ships, pods, and dead bodies into usable raw materials for the manufacture of fresh ships, pods, and soldiers to man them all. Perhaps that's where they got the technology they're using to recycle the bodies of the dead in Macross Frontier. Quote
SebastianP Posted July 18 Posted July 18 On 7/15/2025 at 7:34 PM, Seto Kaiba said: Macross thankfully treats its prototypes in a more realistic manner. The final prototype is usually identical to the initial mass production type, and the early prototypes for any given design are usually hacked-together and lower performance than the final model. (There is that weird corner case that is Macross Plus, though the performance difference there is more because two incredibly talented pilots turned unstable systems unsuitable for production into a sort of Disability Superpower.) Kind of late to the discussion here, but... I'm actually kind of sad that we keep getting new VFs, introduced as "small-scale operational test machines" or "prototypes", and then we never get an unambiguously canon look at them in production again. SDF Macross and DYRL were really refreshing in that the main character was flying essentially the same hardware as everyone else (yeah, it had more head lasers and maybe the engines were a little hotter tuned, but a VF-1 was a VF-1), and the only "specials" were one-off upgrades (Full Armor and Booby Duck) that were eventually mass produced. I'm fairly certain there's a large helping of corporate "the protagonist's machine must be visually distinct so we can sell model kits of it specifically" involved, but I feel like something was lost when the protagonist squad started flying weird specials that were substantially different from the "grunt" machines with the same excuses being reused to keep the old protagonist's stuff from being the new production units. Quote
guyxxed Posted July 18 Posted July 18 I actually agree with that sentiment, and it's what led me to start playing around with what a NUNS version of the VF-25 might look like. I get the idea that a screen full of "hero" valks is visually confusing, but I think the way Delta handled it with differently colored versions for protagonists vs cannon fodder was more than adequate. And, like you say, the original did just fine with everyone in the same plane. Quote
SebastianP Posted July 18 Posted July 18 35 minutes ago, guyxxed said: I actually agree with that sentiment, and it's what led me to start playing around with what a NUNS version of the VF-25 might look like. I get the idea that a screen full of "hero" valks is visually confusing, but I think the way Delta handled it with differently colored versions for protagonists vs cannon fodder was more than adequate. And, like you say, the original did just fine with everyone in the same plane. One of my greatest peeves is that the only VF-25A available in physical form *at all* is the 1/60 DX toy, and the only way to make a 1/72 version is to start with a VF-25G, all of which are molded in blue to make them extra annoying to paint, and then raid another model for a gunpod (which is never spare). Hasegawa *please*, just repop the Super VF-25G in gray plastic and toss in a gatling gunpod. You don't even need to change the decals other than to add more numbers. Easiest rebox ever and they'd sell like *dango*... Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 18 Posted July 18 8 hours ago, SebastianP said: I'm actually kind of sad that we keep getting new VFs, introduced as "small-scale operational test machines" or "prototypes", and then we never get an unambiguously canon look at them in production again. SDF Macross and DYRL were really refreshing in that the main character was flying essentially the same hardware as everyone else (yeah, it had more head lasers and maybe the engines were a little hotter tuned, but a VF-1 was a VF-1), and the only "specials" were one-off upgrades (Full Armor and Booby Duck) that were eventually mass produced. Macross II: Lovers Again was another one where the members of the main cast in the military all use the same model. Possibly the most strict example, since the only "ace custom" variation is a special gunpod on Nex's machine rather than any performance differences. It is rather sad that we don't get to stick around and see emigrant governments actually adopt their respective 5th Generation machines, though they do get acknowledged here and there in novelizations and games and manga and the like. (It's also worth remembering that all of Macross runs on broad strokes continuity, so there isn't any such thing as "unambiguous" canon anyway.) 8 hours ago, SebastianP said: I'm fairly certain there's a large helping of corporate "the protagonist's machine must be visually distinct so we can sell model kits of it specifically" involved, but I feel like something was lost when the protagonist squad started flying weird specials that were substantially different from the "grunt" machines with the same excuses being reused to keep the old protagonist's stuff from being the new production units. There's definitely an element of "the hero must have a distinct machine" that I'm sure the toy partners enforce... though as of Absolute Live!!!!!! even they seem to be dialing it back somewhat and making the ace custom machines more closely resemble the production ones. (That might have something to do with fans thinking the VF-31A looks better, too.) That said, I think the tendency to have the protagonists equipped with the latest and greatest VF ahead of the actual military is pretty silly. It kind of worked in Frontier, because the story's theme was heavily about abuse of corporate power and influence and SMS's parent company more or less ruled the titular fleet indirectly through sheer financial power and even SMS's staff were in a way dehumanized as disposable. Delta doesn't do as good of a job with it, since the whole premise is lazily copied from Frontier even though Xaos is not anywhere near as wealthy or influential as SMS or its parent company. I get the feeling Macross's creators have started to cool on the idea of PMCs too, since the materials for the second movie increasingly depict Xaos as incompetent and other PMCs as criminal. Hopefully once we get away from PMC protagonists we'll see more mass production machines getting to shine. 4 hours ago, guyxxed said: I actually agree with that sentiment, and it's what led me to start playing around with what a NUNS version of the VF-25 might look like. I get the idea that a screen full of "hero" valks is visually confusing, but I think the way Delta handled it with differently colored versions for protagonists vs cannon fodder was more than adequate. And, like you say, the original did just fine with everyone in the same plane. NGL, that kinda rocks. I'd buy that in a DX. We've gotten a couple New UN Forces color schemes for the VF-25 thus far. The two main ones that show up most often are essentially the same as Alto's VF-25F and the generic SMS VF-25A but with New UN Forces markings instead of SMS ones. There's also the unlockable New Game+ colors for Havamal in Macross 30. Quote
guyxxed Posted July 18 Posted July 18 Thanks, the teal scheme has always appealed to me, Frontier fleet has a good sense of style. I won't spam it here, but I made battroid versions of the scheme and played with a number of other imagined liveries down in the Fan Works section under the "3D Collections" thread, if anyone's interested. My stuff starts around page 4, and some others have posted cool stuff there as well. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 18 Posted July 18 21 minutes ago, guyxxed said: Thanks, the teal scheme has always appealed to me, Frontier fleet has a good sense of style. I won't spam it here, but I made battroid versions of the scheme and played with a number of other imagined liveries down in the Fan Works section under the "3D Collections" thread, if anyone's interested. My stuff starts around page 4, and some others have posted cool stuff there as well. At the very least, link it here. It's definitely on topic! Quote
guyxxed Posted July 18 Posted July 18 If you insist. 😉 Starts around here and continues across the next few pages. Also made some racer schemes, a Pixie Squad version of the 25, and then wandered off into some Delta alternate liveries. Some cool stuff by others posted there as well. Quote
pengbuzz Posted July 18 Posted July 18 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: Macross II: Lovers Again was another one where the members of the main cast in the military all use the same model. Possibly the most strict example, since the only "ace custom" variation is a special gunpod on Nex's machine rather than any performance differences. It is rather sad that we don't get to stick around and see emigrant governments actually adopt their respective 5th Generation machines, though they do get acknowledged here and there in novelizations and games and manga and the like. (It's also worth remembering that all of Macross runs on broad strokes continuity, so there isn't any such thing as "unambiguous" canon anyway.) Would like to see that as well; after all, they did bother to design and build them to some degree. 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: There's definitely an element of "the hero must have a distinct machine" that I'm sure the toy partners enforce... though as of Absolute Live!!!!!! even they seem to be dialing it back somewhat and making the ace custom machines more closely resemble the production ones. (That might have something to do with fans thinking the VF-31A looks better, too.) That said, I think the tendency to have the protagonists equipped with the latest and greatest VF ahead of the actual military is pretty silly. It kind of worked in Frontier, because the story's theme was heavily about abuse of corporate power and influence and SMS's parent company more or less ruled the titular fleet indirectly through sheer financial power and even SMS's staff were in a way dehumanized as disposable. Delta doesn't do as good of a job with it, since the whole premise is lazily copied from Frontier even though Xaos is not anywhere near as wealthy or influential as SMS or its parent company. I get the feeling Macross's creators have started to cool on the idea of PMCs too, since the materials for the second movie increasingly depict Xaos as incompetent and other PMCs as criminal. Hopefully once we get away from PMC protagonists we'll see more mass production machines getting to shine. Admittedly, I'm getting the feeling of the "special hero group to save the day" vibe from the continual "PMC" stuff they've been doing for the past few series. It was beginning to make me feel that the regular forces were not considered to be competent to handle anything other than being "cannon-fodder". I even began feeling that way about Macross 7 with Sound Force. At least with SDFM and MII, the heroes were part of the regular UN Forces and not PMC's with mecha you wouldn't find in said forces. Maybe I'm being a bit persnickety or too narrow in my field of view here; that said, would like to see the pilots stand out in what they can do with a good mech more than seeing what the latest model can do while brewing coffee, prepping your tax returns and choosing your lunch order for ya! 1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said: NGL, that kinda rocks. I'd buy that in a DX. We've gotten a couple New UN Forces color schemes for the VF-25 thus far. The two main ones that show up most often are essentially the same as Alto's VF-25F and the generic SMS VF-25A but with New UN Forces markings instead of SMS ones. There's also the unlockable New Game+ colors for Havamal in Macross 30. Yeah... I agree. That paint scheme really works on that! Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 19 Posted July 19 8 hours ago, guyxxed said: If you insist. 😉 Starts around here and continues across the next few pages. Also made some racer schemes, a Pixie Squad version of the 25, and then wandered off into some Delta alternate liveries. Some cool stuff by others posted there as well. Oh, but I do insist. I love seeing what people come up with for this sort of thing... for much the same reason I enjoy the "Squadron Marking" sections of the Master File books and the Macross Plus This is Animation Special book, and the custom model kit features in Model Graphix, Character Model, etc. It's a beautiful grab bag of "just looks cool", neat references and in-jokes to the series, and historical references to famous fighter squadrons or other things. 7 hours ago, pengbuzz said: Admittedly, I'm getting the feeling of the "special hero group to save the day" vibe from the continual "PMC" stuff they've been doing for the past few series. It was beginning to make me feel that the regular forces were not considered to be competent to handle anything other than being "cannon-fodder". That's kind of intentional, yeah... One detail that's not really brought up in either series but is fairly important and comes up a lot in supplemental material is that the reorganization of the New UN Forces following the Second Unification Wars (the events of Macross VF-X2) stripped the military of a lot of the authority and unchecked power it previously wielded and decentralized command to the individual (and more autonomous) emigrant governments. As a result of that and a growing reliance on unmanned fighters, the quality of the average soldier in emigrant fleet New UN Forces has declined a bit. The troop quality situation is surely not helped in the least by having PMCs owned by unfathomably wealthy mega-corporations headhunting top talent away from the military with sheer spending power. That said, the presentation of the New UN Forces at the start of Macross Frontier is pretty unfair to them. The Frontier branch of SMS is the very definition of the words "spared no expense". They are the very finest mercenaries money can buy, headhunted away from the most elite New UN Forces units and equipped with the very latest and best weapons, to protect an emigrant fleet sponsored by SMS's parent company on a mission set by the company's founder as a part of his personal obsession with finding a way to overcome fold faults. They're not just the most elite soldiers in the fleet, they're likely SMS's most elite soldiers in the galaxy. Plus the Frontier NUNS initially doesn't have weapons that can hurt the Vajra. Scorning them for feeling fear when they're fighting a fight they have no hope of winning and dying for it is pretty unfair. Once they get better munitions meant for use against the Vajra they give a pretty good accounting of themselves. It's perhaps more blatant and also less intentional in Macross Delta, where the Brisingr Alliance's economic situation means the local New UN Forces are underfunded and less well equipped, though even they still thrash the Aerial Knights despite a massive disadvantage when the playing field is leveled. 7 hours ago, pengbuzz said: I even began feeling that way about Macross 7 with Sound Force. At least with SDFM and MII, the heroes were part of the regular UN Forces and not PMC's with mecha you wouldn't find in said forces. Macross 7 was perhaps where it was most justified to have an elite unit with ace custom mecha. After all, the anima spiritia users were rare and effectively irreplaceable assets who were 100% necessary to oppose the Protodeviln and their forces. Maximizing their effectiveness meant non-standard gear designed for their non-standard approach to warfare, and giving them gear with the best possible defensive ability was only sensible to ensure that they came back alive. (Why the fleet military didn't assign them a permanent bodyguard unit like Diamond Force or Emerald Force is beyond me... could've saved a lot of trouble, not that Basara would've given them the time of day.) Quote
JB0 Posted July 20 Posted July 20 On 7/19/2025 at 12:53 AM, Seto Kaiba said: Plus the Frontier NUNS initially doesn't have weapons that can hurt the Vajra. Scorning them for feeling fear when they're fighting a fight they have no hope of winning and dying for it is pretty unfair. On the other hand, SMS is only equipped for the job because they're doing testing for the new fighter before the NUNS adopts it. And I recall there being lines to the effect that SMS was doing the testing primarily so that the government didn't owe anything to anyone if something went wrong. Independent contractors aren't entitled to medical benefits or compensation to next-of-kin, they're just up a creek if the lightly-tested plane decides to go project supernova under their chair or something. Ironically, in this case the gubmint probably paid out more in medical and bereavement due to their policy of being responsibility-dodging cheapskates. Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 20 Posted July 20 4 hours ago, JB0 said: On the other hand, SMS is only equipped for the job because they're doing testing for the new fighter before the NUNS adopts it. And I recall there being lines to the effect that SMS was doing the testing primarily so that the government didn't owe anything to anyone if something went wrong. Independent contractors aren't entitled to medical benefits or compensation to next-of-kin, they're just up a creek if the lightly-tested plane decides to go project supernova under their chair or something. Ironically, in this case the gubmint probably paid out more in medical and bereavement due to their policy of being responsibility-dodging cheapskates. Yeah, that conversation between Ozma and Alto is split across episodes 2 and 3 as a prelude to Alto joining SMS. Of course, one detail that is tactfully omitted in Ozma's explanation is that the reason SMS got the lucrative contracts to support the Frontier NUNS as an advance scouting force and elite special duty unit, as well as field testing the next-generation VF-25 and Macross Quarter-class carrier, is that the fabulously wealthy interstellar shipping firm that is SMS's parent company wields an enormous amount of influence over the Frontier Government. Macross Frontier and Macross Delta both remind the audience in various ways that the PMC troops get a pretty raw deal despite being paid better than the regular military. They are legally civilians and thus enjoy none of the benefits or legal protections afforded to the government's soldiers. If they die in the line of duty, no matter how it happens, it's legally an accidental death. There's no government pension, no death benefits, no promise of an inquest or board of inquiry into wrongful death, no military burial or memorial... nothing. On top of that, it's confirmed in-series that their status as armed civilians makes them unlawful combatants in wartime so they're ineligible for legal protections afforded to prisoners of war or regular civilians. Kind of the ultimate F-about Find Out situation... PMC troops are as close to legally expendable personnel as it gets. Quote
TehPW Posted July 20 Posted July 20 3 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: Yeah, that conversation between Ozma and Alto is split across episodes 2 and 3 as a prelude to Alto joining SMS. Of course, one detail that is tactfully omitted in Ozma's explanation is that the reason SMS got the lucrative contracts to support the Frontier NUNS as an advance scouting force and elite special duty unit, as well as field testing the next-generation VF-25 and Macross Quarter-class carrier, is that the fabulously wealthy interstellar shipping firm that is SMS's parent company wields an enormous amount of influence over the Frontier Government. Macross Frontier and Macross Delta both remind the audience in various ways that the PMC troops get a pretty raw deal despite being paid better than the regular military. They are legally civilians and thus enjoy none of the benefits or legal protections afforded to the government's soldiers. If they die in the line of duty, no matter how it happens, it's legally an accidental death. There's no government pension, no death benefits, no promise of an inquest or board of inquiry into wrongful death, no military burial or memorial... nothing. On top of that, it's confirmed in-series that their status as armed civilians makes them unlawful combatants in wartime so they're ineligible for legal protections afforded to prisoners of war or regular civilians. Kind of the ultimate F-about Find Out situation... PMC troops are as close to legally expendable personnel as it gets. when Macross Frontier was being made, was it the 2nd Iraq war that was the source of some of those ideas around PMC troops? or was it the mercenary contractors made infamous during that war that caught the MF writers's eye? Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 21 Posted July 21 1 hour ago, TehPW said: when Macross Frontier was being made, was it the 2nd Iraq war that was the source of some of those ideas around PMC troops? or was it the mercenary contractors made infamous during that war that caught the MF writers's eye? I honestly cannot recall the creators of Macross Frontier commenting on why they chose to make the protagonists private military contractors. I checked a variety of artbooks with staff interviews and came up dry as to the inspiration for the choice. @sketchley might know more. Now, if I were inclined to guess as to what the inspiration might be... my suspicion would run more towards similar organizations in popular fiction around the time development first began on Macross Frontier. The one that jumps to mind is MITHRIL from Shoji Gatoh's Full Metal Panic!. The second season of the anime (Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid) aired in Summer 2005, and the original light novel was just kicking off its final climactic story arc. MITHRIL is, of course, a super-elite mercenary organization that recruits the best soldiers of fortune from around the world for its mission to prevent World War III by acting as an NGO superpower that field tests the latest and greatest robotic weapons for the NATO powers while wiping out terrorists, dictatorial regimes, and other forces aiming to destabilize the world (like their predecessor organization AMALGAM). The two organizations are quite similar in principle. though Macross Frontier's SMS is a bit more cynical given that it's run as a business (rather than being a NATO proxy force set up with implausible deniability in mind), tying into the show's theme of runaway growth of corporate power and influence. I'm inclined to suspect that there is probably no specific real world inspiration for SMS. Public perception of PMCs has always been rather unfavorable. They're not something that'd generally be considered "heroic". Particularly in the mid-2000s, when public awareness of PMCs was focused mainly on scandals, controversies, and criminal activities tied to PMC troops in the middle east. Spoiler IMO, we may be seeing some real world influence creeping in in later stories. Macross Delta's Xaos PCM Division is a less unrealistic depiction of a PMC. They're shown to be operating on a tight budget and with limited financial resources. They're also not recruiting The Best of The Best away from the military. Instead, they're hiring soldiers who left the military (voluntarily or otherwise) after their careers hit a dead-end and lack the skills and/or inclination to make a living by other means. Volunteer Knights of Arkarelia goes one step further and depicts an out-and-out villainous PMC participating in the unprovoked invasion and occupation of an one alien New UN Gov't world by another. Quote
guyxxed Posted July 21 Posted July 21 The amount of power private corporations wield in the Macross universe is frankly terrifying. SMS has a fleet of Macross class warships that it fielded in the final movie that wasn't acting on behest of the government, but just protecting it's own assets (granted, the needs of the government kinda overlapped, but that was largely incidental). Even as cash strapped as Xaos is in Delta, they still have at least three Elysion class ships. That would have been more than enough to take over the Brisninger Cluster by force (at least for a little while) if they so chose. What happens when the Macross equivalent of Amazon or Google decides they don't like the competition in some out of the way outpost? I'm sure the NUNS can mount an adequate response, but they still have to A) know about the incident, and B) be able to mobilize to its location by which time the damage is done. And if a few of these incidents pop up together, I think it wouldn't be long before NUNS is overwhelmed and a shooting war between corporate entities for commercial/territorial dominance is off and running. Whether Macross's creators think favorably or unfavorably about PMC's, the world they've imagined has let that genie out of the bottle and given it steroids, where it ends is scary to think about. Quote
talonlm Posted July 21 Posted July 21 9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said: I'm inclined to suspect that there is probably no specific real world inspiration for SMS. Public perception of PMCs has always been rather unfavorable. They're not something that'd generally be considered "heroic". Particularly in the mid-2000s, when public awareness of PMCs was focused mainly on scandals, controversies, and criminal activities tied to PMC troops in the middle east. We've had this discussion before--our experiences in that realm clearly vary--and I'm inclined to cede the point about the mid-2000s. The PMC you want are the ones that makes the least noise. If they're in business and you don't hear about them, they're doing a good job. I would also point out that, in the Macross universe, there is a driving need for these massively well-armed PMCs as there are still huge fleets of Zentraedi still out there, doing their thing. These PMCs may have been hired by a backwater colony or otherwise not on the NUNS' radars--they could be the only thing holding the line until NUNS (or whomever) comes riding over the hill to save the day. 33 minutes ago, guyxxed said: Whether Macross's creators think favorably or unfavorably about PMC's, the world they've imagined has let that genie out of the bottle and given it steroids, where it ends is scary to think about. The real world is both far too boring and far more frightening. I prefer my nightmares to come from the remnants of a galaxy wide war that wipe out 99% or humanity. So yeah, why not this? Quote
Seto Kaiba Posted July 22 Posted July 22 (edited) 18 hours ago, guyxxed said: The amount of power private corporations wield in the Macross universe is frankly terrifying. Oh, absolutely. General Galaxy managed to clout its way into having the New UN Government recognize one of its subsidiary companies as a government itself, turning an entire emigrant fleet into a flying company town where the Macross Galaxy corporation had total authority and could engage in all kinds of human rights and ethics violations in its R&D while hiding behind the autonomy granted to emigrant governments by the central government. There's more straightforward political corruption and all manner of corporate crime too from the megacorporations. 18 hours ago, guyxxed said: SMS has a fleet of Macross class warships that it fielded in the final movie that wasn't acting on behest of the government, but just protecting it's own assets (granted, the needs of the government kinda overlapped, but that was largely incidental). SMS did send several Macross Quarter-class ships to assist the Macross Frontier fleet in the movie version of Macross Frontier, but they weren't a rogue operation. They arrive as part of the joint SMS-New UN Forces reinforcements that were dispatched from other nearby emigrant governments to reinforce the Frontier fleet. They were almost certainly activated under whatever defense contract they have with the emigrant fleets they were attached to, and dispatched alongside the New UN Forces reinforcements from the fleets in question. That SMS has such powerful ships is certainly grounds for concern, though Macross Chronicle suggests that even those ships may technically be considered to be "on loan" to SMS rather than "owned by" SMS and that they're also essentially the limit of what SMS is allowed to operate by law and government regulation. They're also quite expensive, so they're not just the limit of what the law permits, they're also likely the limit of what SMS can actually afford to operate despite Macross Chronicle explicitly marking them out as being The Biggest among PMCs. SMS is never shown with other ships besides the Macross Quarter-class ships, barring one case where the branch in question is meant to be low-key and covert. 18 hours ago, guyxxed said: Even as cash strapped as Xaos is in Delta, they still have at least three Elysion class ships. That would have been more than enough to take over the Brisninger Cluster by force (at least for a little while) if they so chose. At least four at the start, yeah... Elysion, Gigasion, Megasion, and Grasion. That said, the Elysion-type Macross doesn't seem to actually be all that powerful as a warship. One of the several reasons I privately suspect - in the absence of any hard statements either way - that the Elysion-type is an older generation of Macross than the Macross Quarter-class is that its greater size doesn't seem to afford it any significant advantage. It has a few more beam turrets than the standard Macross Quarter-class, but is outclassed there by a variant Macross Quarter-class from the movies. Neither its turrets nor its Macross Cannon seem to be particularly powerful either... and it flat-out lacks an equivalent to the Macross Quarter's gatling buster. Perhaps most tellingly, despite being twice as large it seems to have only about 1/2 the mecha capacity of its smaller counterpart. The New UN Spacy's smallest standard carrier is home to around 40 aircraft in normal operating conditions. The Macross Quarter-class supposedly holds around 60 mecha in total, counting emplaced unmanned destroids for air defense, Ghosts, Valkyries, and Battle Suits. The Macross Elysion's only home to twenty Valkyries between its two support carriers Aether and Hemera, presumably having room for around 30 in total without Walkure's special equipment getting underfoot. That's pretty darn small for such a large ship. Doubly so considering that one ship is Xaos's only force covering multiple inhabited planets simultaneously whereas a single Macross Quarter-class is covering a single emigrant fleet. On that basis, I don't think they really have enough firepower to take over the Brisingr cluster solo... I think they'd probably get taken out through sheer weight of numbers in a similar way that Windermere IV did once Heinz was out of action. 18 hours ago, guyxxed said: What happens when the Macross equivalent of Amazon or Google decides they don't like the competition in some out of the way outpost? I'm sure the NUNS can mount an adequate response, but they still have to A) know about the incident, and B) be able to mobilize to its location by which time the damage is done. And if a few of these incidents pop up together, I think it wouldn't be long before NUNS is overwhelmed and a shooting war between corporate entities for commercial/territorial dominance is off and running. It probably wouldn't be a particularly large fight. Macross Chronicle and Master File both mention in passing that the New UN Government imposes regulations and restrictions on PMCs that limit things like the size of PMC forces and what weapons they're legally allowed to purchase for their forces. SMS's Macross Frontier branch and Xaos's Ragna branch are both either implicitly or explicitly quite substantial as PMC forces go. SMS's Macross Frontier branch was supposed to be a heavyweight force of elites intended to tackle the threat of contact with the Vajra, and Xaos's Ragna branch was basically sector headquarters covering multiple planets under contract with the company. Both forces amount to a single well-armed warship and a few dozen Valkyries... and even that is disproportionately heavy since they're equipped with state-of-the-art weapons on loan from the NUNS. Odds are the much less impressive forces like Xaos's Pipure branch in Macross E are closer to the norm, with a few platoons of previous-gen Valkyries and not much else. A good deal less power than even the smallest regular NUNS carrier can project. Macross Chronicle suggests a lot of PMC forces are still primarily engaged in their original business of protecting the cargo shipments of their parent companies from piracy, so if one PMC did attack another odds are it'd likely be a quick battle followed by the defender's parent company suing the aggressor's parent company for damages rather than a big fight that's outside what the NUNS can put down. 18 hours ago, guyxxed said: Whether Macross's creators think favorably or unfavorably about PMC's, the world they've imagined has let that genie out of the bottle and given it steroids, where it ends is scary to think about. Yep... though it seems like they're trying to declaw the concept a bit in the Macross Delta era by acknowledging that a hypercompetent PMC like SMS is quite unrealistic and most are... substantially less impressive. Macross Delta as a whole is essentially set up as a war between two bush league forces, a third-rate PMC and some disorganized local NUNS remnants vs. a planetary defense force that has high-end gear but almost no experience. It's pretty telling that when a renegade force from the central NUNS shows up, both sides get pounded into the ground like tent pegs in the first five minutes. 18 hours ago, talonlm said: The PMC you want are the ones that makes the least noise. If they're in business and you don't hear about them, they're doing a good job. That's true for any contract worker... you don't want to hire someone who's making a lot of noise and causing a lot of problems. 18 hours ago, talonlm said: I would also point out that, in the Macross universe, there is a driving need for these massively well-armed PMCs as there are still huge fleets of Zentraedi still out there, doing their thing. These PMCs may have been hired by a backwater colony or otherwise not on the NUNS' radars--they could be the only thing holding the line until NUNS (or whomever) comes riding over the hill to save the day. Not so much? Each emigrant fleet has its own New UN Forces escort detail that protects it in transit and becomes the local New UN Forces once they find a planet to settle on. The only exception we know of is Macross 29, which deliberately disbanded its defense force after adopting an official policy of pacifist total nonaggression. As noted above, large PMC forces with state-of-the-art weapons are the exception rather than the rule. We've gotten two different takes on what exactly drives demand for PMC services in Macross: Macross Chronicle suggests that demand for PMCs like industry leader SMS started with companies establishing internal security forces for interstellar cargo transports and eventually spun those divisions off and diversified them into providing support and training to local New UN Forces who suffered from a decline in the quality of training as the result of the Second Unification War and overreliance on unmanned fighters. Macross Delta era materials and Master File take a rather less kind view that PMCs were a workaround for chronic manpower shortages in the era of space emigration. PMCs are a way for the New UN Forces to ring-fence and indirectly make use of people who don't meet the military's exacting standards but have useful skills, talents, training, and experience. Sort of a way to recycle people who've been kicked out of the military for various reasons and use folks who couldn't hack it there in the first place. Spoiler The various examples run the gamut from people who were kicked out of the New UN Forces for affiliation with anti-government groups and for assaulting civilians down the line to medical and mandatory retirement discharges and ELS cases who were considered unfit for service due to low work ethic, chronic lateness, and frequent absenteeism. Edited July 22 by Seto Kaiba Quote
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