The Macross Valkyrie Thread

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm guessing the same restriction also applies to the YF-30?

To a lesser extent than the YF-29, but yes. There is another, bigger obstacle between the YF-30 and mass production.

The YF-30's Fold Dimensional Resonance system is purported to be more potent than the YF-29 Fold Wave System it was developed from, though its design focus was somewhat different (being intended to allow traversal of fold faults rather than just boosting performance). It probably uses a lot less fold quartz, given that the system ties into the VF's engines and the YF-30 has half as many of those. It still requires the kind of obscenely high purity that you'll only find among ancient Protoculture devices or Vajra queen-types.

The bigger sticking point is that the YF-30's Fold Dimensional Resonance system is proprietary technology owned by Strategic Military Services. The Fold Wave System was developed by a fleet government for military use, so its specs were shared with the New UN Government as required by law. The Fold Dimensional Resonance system was not. Its development was done by SMS on Uroboros, and SMS gamed the system a bit by classifying their test airframe as a prototype rather than an experimental aircraft, allowing them to avoid disclosure of its proprietary technologies at the time. Even if the super high-spec fold quartz were available, mass producing the FDR system would require obtaining the specs from SMS first, and they're not likely to cough up since finding a way to penetrate fold faults is the personal obsession of the owner of SMS's parent company, Richard Bilra.

By the time the VF-31 Custom Siegfrieds rolled around c.2066, Shinsei, LAI, and other parties like Dian Cecht seem to have found ways to make lower-performance fold wave systems with reduced materials requirements. The Siegfried uses a fold wave system that has apparently been optimized to reduce the fold quartz requirement, allowing both the fold wave system and fold wave amplifiers to share a single pair of large fold quartz crystals (mounted dorsally). On Windermere IV's Draken IIIs, they have an even more cut-down version of the fold wave system called the fold reheat system that focuses exclusively on improving engine power, offering almost twice the performance improvement of Xaos's Siegfrieds fold wave systems, but without the supplemental benefits like bolstering the generator output. It's worth noting that neither craft's boosted performance is in the same league as the YF-29 or YF-30 running normally... that's the price you pay for affordable mass production.

[False Prophet]

The Macross Galaxy fleet executives were not the leaders of the megacorporation General Galaxy... they were only the executives of the subsidiary corporation that General Galaxy established to own and administrate the Macross Galaxy emigrant fleet in its role as General Galaxy's flying R&D facility. What they did probably caused a scandal, but as all of the emigrant fleets are essentially autonomous governmentally there wouldn't have been much (if any) blowback that would impact General Galaxy's own corporate leadership.

(That was, when you think about it, probably the entire point. Exploiting the New UN Government's stance on treating emigrant fleets as autonomous governmental entities by having a corporate emigrant fleet run by a subsidiary, they'd nearly escape governmental oversight and regulation of the dodgier forms of testing they were doing by establishing their own government. That way the General Galaxy corporate leadership has plausible deniability for any of the very dodgy testing that the fleet was doing on their behalf.)

Only a handful, they were made by the Uroboros factory satellite for the NUNS Havamal special forces unit's top aces.

Generally speaking, the YF-29 is unsuitable for production. The Fold Wave System requires such an obscene quantity (and quality) of fold quartz that even limited production is simply not feasible for even the wealthiest NUNG member states. On its own, the fold wave system needs four 1,000 carat pieces of fold quartz at an ultra-high purity level not normally found outside the bodies of queen-form Vajra. That right there puts buiilding even one YF-29 outside of the reach of most governments. That's not counting the additional fold quartz necessary to buiild the fighter's fold amps and provide the granulated fold quartz canopy coating.

With synthesizing fold quartz still beyond the reach of the New UN Government's technology and fold quartz itself a restricted commodity due to its weapons applications, the only way to build the YF-29 in numbers would be to have an irresponsibly massive budget and be on a planet with colossal amounts of fold quartz. Pretty much the only way Havamal could get away with building multiple YF-29Bs was that Uroboros happens to be a former Protoculture planet with a huge amount of fold quartz left behind by Vajra colonies and the Protoculture's own devices.

Then did the heads of Macross Galaxy commit all of there acts without their superiors' knowledge, or were there explicit permission from the top?

Say, what does coating the canopy with fold quartz do?

Also, were there anything notable about technology that showed up in Macross II (I still haven't got around to watch)? Have them been used in the main timeline?

[Seto Kaiba]

Then did the heads of Macross Galaxy commit all of there acts without their superiors' knowledge, or were there explicit permission from the top?

With the Macross Galaxy fleet already years away from the core systems by space fold, it seems rather unlikely that the Macross Galaxy executives would have been taking direction from outside the fleet. Especially given that, in Macross Frontier's TV version, the architect of the thought network plan was a leading scientist from the fleet.

Say, what does coating the canopy with fold quartz do?

Y'know... I have no idea. Multiple sources mention that the YF-29's canopy has been coated in fold quartz, but none of them actually mention what it's supposed to do.

If I had to guess, and I must stress that I'm not basing this on anything in particular besides the fact that the entire fold wave system is all about manipulating fold waves, I'd assume that it was something related to amplifying fold waves either from within the cockpit or fold waves entering the cockpit.

Also, were there anything notable about technology that showed up in Macross II (I still haven't got around to watch)? Have them been used in the main timeline?

Well, Macross II: Lovers Again did have a few technological firsts that found their way into later Macross titles in the main continuity.

• Small-scale holographic projectors made their debut in the OVA's first episode, when Sylvie Gena and Exegran used them to provide full-body wearable holographic disguises in order to attend their clandestine meeting. The same tech would later appear in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta as the basis for the costumes of idols like Sheryl Nome, Ranka Lee, and Walkure, complete with similar weaknesses like being intangible and easily disrupted.
• Pilot support exoskeletons in VF cockpits were a standard feature in Macross II's VFs, having been installed to help pilots function under high g-force loads and improve precision control. They're similar to EX-Gear in princible but provide purely physical support like a powered exoskeleton rather than being tied into an inertia capacitor system, and don't become an independently operable powered suit.
• Railguns... railguns EVERYWHERE. Every VF in the OVA except the VF-XX Zentradi Valkyrie is carrying at least one railgun. The VF-2SS Valkyrie II has as many as four, with two medium railguns for normal gunpods, an optional heavy railgun gunpod seen on Nex Gilbert's unit, and an anti-warship railgun mounted as a "Strike" cannon. The VF-2JA has one heavy railgun as its gunpod, and the Metal Siren dual-wields heavy railgun gunpods. Prior to this, railguns were a weapon only used by the Macross itself (its "shoulder" guns), and a pure electromagnetic gunpod has yet to be a weapon in the main Macross continuity, though many 5th Gen VFs use chemically-assisted railguns.
• A VF with a fourth mode. The VA-1SS Metal Siren remains the only VF in Macross to explicitly have four modes... the fourth, Gundroid, is explicitly optimized for space dogfighting as a sort of reverse-GERWALK mode with a fighter-like lower body and battroid-like upper body allowing it to bring all of its weapons to bear simultaneously and engage in an enormous amount of thrust-vectoring with its main engines and multiple sub-engines. The OVA also has the first VF to have only two modes (the Zentradi Valkyrie), though that is no longer a unique trait.
• VFs based on Zentradi overtechnology. The main Macross timeline would start writing this into its setting with Macross Plus and the YF-21, but Macross II did it first with all of the VFs in the OVA being based on tech that was reverse-engineered from a captured factory satellite that produced Zentradi battle suits.
• Civilian-market VFs. The first of these to appear in Macross was Hibiki's VC-079, the camera Valkyrie he flew for war correspondant Dennis Lone while on probation with his employer SNN over his muckraking. Macross II was the only Macross feature to include purpose-built civilian market VFs, whereas the civilian use VFs in the main timeline are decommissioned military models.
• Realtime translation technology. We only see it do two languages (Zentradi and the English everyone is implied to be speaking), but Macross II features a consumer-level realtime translator ala Star Trek that is worn as an earring and is approximately the size of a guitar pick. (Ishtar doesn't speak English but she does speak Zentradi, so this is used to enable her and Hibiki to communicate since Hibiki's grasp of Zentradi is... not so good.) Nothing like that is ever seen in the main Macross continuity.
• Indirect-fire dimensional energy weapons. The Mardook mobile fortress has a fold weapon that allows it to produce thermonuclear reaction warhead-like detonations at considerable range without needing line of sight to the target.
• Brainwashing/mind control technology. Macross II was the first to show it in use, with the Mardook using mind controlled Zentradi troops as their foot soldiers and controlling their fighting instincts using songs.

[False Prophet]

How powerful is the Macross Cannon? Will we see one in the main timeline? Humanity already know how to miniaturize a Macross into Macross Quarter, so theoretically they can, right?

[Seto Kaiba]

How powerful is the Macross Cannon?

Macross II: Lovers Again never really puts a firm number on it, but we can infer from the dialog that the firepower of the Macross Cannon-class anti-fleet gunboat is at least several hundred (and more likely several thousand) times a Macross-class main gun's firepower. They're designed to one-shot Zentradi Army branch fleets, which are normally around 1,200 ships strong.

Will we see one in the main timeline?

Almost certainly not, for three reasons:

• While other Macross creators like Mikimoto are just with homages to Macross II, Kawamori has generally stayed away from it. Whether he's salty that it was made without him or he truly hasn't seen it as he claims is unclear.
• The UN Spacy of the Macross II timeline adopted the Zentradi Army's tactics, focusing on fleets of battleships with heavy direct firepower rather than aircraft carriers with indirect offensive capabilities. The role of fighters therein was more about punching through the enemy's air defenses to start disabling them so friendly capital ships can then approcah and bombard them safely. The Macross Cannon-class is essentially the distillation of that ethos, being about maximum offensive firepower that would result in massive friendly fire losses if it were used in a main timeline strategic formation.
• Unlike the main timeline where Zentradi Army warships are relatively rare in the New UN Spacy fleets, they're pretty common in the Macross II timeline. The New UN Spacy of the main timeline probably couldn't afford to sacrifice four Nupetiet Vergnitzs-class fleet command battleships to make a Macross Cannon-class gunboat the way the Macross II timeline UN Spacy casually can with their regular influxes of captured ships from rogue Zentradi fleets.

Humanity already know how to miniaturize a Macross into Macross Quarter, so theoretically they can, right?

Theoretically, yeah.

[DragoMaster009]

I wonder what possible advances a hypothetical VF-32 would bring, or if the limits of a Valkyrie has been reached by the VF-31?

[Seto Kaiba]

I wonder what possible advances a hypothetical VF-32 would bring, or if the limits of a Valkyrie has been reached by the VF-31?

The VF-31 doesn't even come close to reaching the pinnacle of its own VF generation. It's definitely a long, LONG way from the limits of what a VF can do. It's more or less the Macross universe's version of the Mitsubishi X-2.

We've not heard anything concrete about 6th Generation VFs yet, so the only available hint is that fold wave tech will be the next major performance enhancement. Whether that'll take the form of a fold reheat system like the Sv-262 Draken III's, a fold wave system like the YF-29 Durandal's, or the more potent fold dimensional resonance system of the YF-30 Chronos is anyone's guess.

[False Prophet]

I'm not aware that the Mitsubishi X-2 is that mediocore. On the other hand, it is a domestic product kind of like the VF-31, right? I wonder if Brisingr could produce VF-25 on their own in the case they have got the licensing.

[Seto Kaiba]

I'm not aware that the Mitsubishi X-2 is that mediocore.

Not so much mediocre as built on hubris and excessive optimism.

"Let's make a domestic 5th Generation fighter jet and keep all that sweet, sweet defense industry cash in-country!"
"Oh wait, we don't have any of the infrastructure to actually DO that... FML we're buying 90% of the tech from the Americans instead of 100%."

On the other hand, it is a domestic product kind of like the VF-31, right? I wonder if Brisingr could produce VF-25 on their own in the case they have got the licensing.

Yeah, the VF-31 literally has the same backstory... the Brisingr globular cluster has a trade imbalance and wanted to produce a new fighter domestically to stimulate their own economy and possibly sell as an export, and ultimately it ended up being made mostly of imported or build-under-license parts anyway.

Oh, they absolutely could build a VF-25 on their own. The VF-31's halfway there already, as it's mostly made from off-the-shelf hardware developed for the VF-25. They just didn't want to pay the license fee to the Frontier fleet so they could locally manufacture the VF-25.

[False Prophet]

Say, what is the best way to bring down a New Macross Class, either by attacking from the outside or inside? Also, is the concert ship from 7 an one-off design?

[Seto Kaiba]

Say, what is the best way to bring down a New Macross Class, either by attacking from the outside or inside? Also, is the concert ship from 7 an one-off design?

Depends how much firepower you have...

The most efficient way would probably be what was demonstrated with the YF-24-3... using a fold booster to jump directly inside the ship's air defense envelope and deploy a reaction warhead.

As to the Budokan concert ship, I have no idea. I don't think we've ever had proper coverage of it.

[False Prophet]

Depends how much firepower you have...

The most efficient way would probably be what was demonstrated with the YF-24-3... using a fold booster to jump directly inside the ship's air defense envelope and deploy a reaction warhead.

As to the Budokan concert ship, I have no idea. I don't think we've ever had proper coverage of it.

Why do we need a concern ship again? How easy is it for high-fidelity live-streaming between ships of a fleet, and between different fleets? Can people use fold faults for jamming signals?

[Seto Kaiba]

Why do we need a concern ship again? How easy is it for high-fidelity live-streaming between ships of a fleet, and between different fleets? Can people use fold faults for jamming signals?

Because it looks super cool.

Really, there is absolutely no reason for the Macross 7 fleet - or any other - to build a thing like that. They already have several different large concert venues in the fleet on several different habitat ships such as the Riviera-class, Mark Twain-class, and Hollywood-class habitat ships, as well as in the City-class itself. The Macross 7 series showed us that much.

Realtime high-fidelity streaming is easy enough within an emigrant fleet thanks to things like high-bandwidth radio, line-of-sight laser, and fold wave communications systems that every ship is already equipped with for handling all the standard civilian and military communications traffic it takes to run the day to day business of a fleet. Having streams sent to other fleets or planets is more complicated the farther away you are thanks to the time lag of fold communications over dozens or hundreds of light years, fold faults disrupting transmissions, and the relay hops the transmission might need to take to circumvent them. If you've got relays in the right places and a minimum total number of hops, you can get almost realtime visuals from over a dozen light years away. If conditions are bad, an otherwise short range transmission can experience minutes or even hours of lag.

(Communications between the Macross Frontier fleet and Gallia IV would have been almost in real time except for heavy fold fault activity that resulted in transmissions lagging by 127 minutes.)

Fold faults can jam transmissions, but the only species known to be able to produce artificial ones are the Vajra and the ancient Protoculture... who were more interested in using them for defensive purposes than for jamming.

[False Prophet]

Realtime high-fidelity streaming is easy enough within an emigrant fleet thanks to things like high-bandwidth radio, line-of-sight laser, and fold wave communications systems that every ship is already equipped with for handling all the standard civilian and military communications traffic it takes to run the day to day business of a fleet. Having streams sent to other fleets or planets is more complicated the farther away you are thanks to the time lag of fold communications over dozens or hundreds of light years, fold faults disrupting transmissions, and the relay hops the transmission might need to take to circumvent them. If you've got relays in the right places and a minimum total number of hops, you can get almost realtime visuals from over a dozen light years away. If conditions are bad, an otherwise short range transmission can experience minutes or even hours of lag.

Have the shows shown us how exactly do the relay points look like? Is there an organization that control it, or the fleets just build them as they go?

[Seto Kaiba]

Have the shows shown us how exactly do the relay points look like? Is there an organization that control it, or the fleets just build them as they go?

We do get to see a RVF-171 from the Macross Frontier fleet deploy a relay pod during forward reconnaissance ops in Macross Frontier's sixth episode. The pod appears to be quite small, maybe the size of a large duffel bag.

It isn't known if that is a typical relay unit or just a temporary one to facilitate operations in the area.

Fleets seem to build them as they go, though each fleet is itself essentially a massive relay station. The Hollywood-class amusement ship was, for all intents and purposes, an entertainment facility built INSIDE a massive spherical fold wave antenna cluster.

[False Prophet]

What would happen if you expose a patient of Var Syndrome to the Varja's Bio-Fold Wave? Also, if you go by the movie, how big was the percentage of human territories being attacked by Varja?

[Seto Kaiba]

What would happen if you expose a patient of Var Syndrome to the Varja's Bio-Fold Wave?

No idea. As of 2067, it's only a theory that Var syndrome is caused by the same fold bacterium that grant the Vajra the biological zero-time fold communications ability that forms the foundation of their hive mind. IMO, it's unlikely give that the Vajra's V-type bacterium was explicitly lethal if it infected the humanoid central nervous system, and nobody on the Delta cast seems to be dying horribly from the buildup of toxins it produces. Communications with the Vajra hive mind only seem to be possible with the V-type bacterium occupying the entric nervous system governing the digestive tract.

The Vajra didn't seem to be able to exert any control or influence over Ranka Lee or Sheryl Nome, so it seems to me to be somewhat unlikely that a Vajra could influence someone suffering from Var syndrome. It seems to require an enormously powerful biological fold wave (something so powerful it's detectable by ELINT/AWACS detection gear) to trigger and control Var syndrome.

Also, if you go by the movie, how big was the percentage of human territories being attacked by Varja?

Until the Vajra hive mind was hijacked by the Galaxy Executives, the Vajra were pretty happy to be left alone and weren't actively seeking hostilities with the Galaxy or Frontier fleets except to "rescue" Ranka Lee, whom they had misidentified as a Vajra thanks to her entric nervous system being host to the V-type bacterium.

The Galaxy Executives intended to pursue the same kind of borderline instrumentality ending that Grace wanted in the series, so it's probably safe to assume they attacked key worlds and fleets like Earth, Eden, and so on.

[False Prophet]

Hypothetically, how fast would the Windermerians be crushed has NUNS considered them a real threat? And has humanity ever exterminated an alien race in Macross,

Also, does people's perception of a singer changes on whether that singer has high Spiritia count/fold receptors or not? I know that I should suspend my disbelief, but it kind of baffle me to see how big of a deal were the singers in-universe. Macross music is better than the usual Idol stuffs we see in real life, I admit that much, but still? The power of narrative and marketing--the media sure did mine Lynn's and the Fire Bomber's involvement in the wars, right?

I wonder whether Macross or a parody show would have a terrible singer that can still do mind magic because of what he/she is born with?

[Seto Kaiba]

Hypothetically, how fast would the Windermerians be crushed has NUNS considered them a real threat?

Very quickly... you saw in the Macross Delta TV series that when the New UN Government finally decided that the threat Windermere IV posed was too severe for half-measures, they deployed a fleet to destroy the planet entirely with dimensional warheads.

And has humanity ever exterminated an alien race in Macross,

Nope. Humanity is understandably opposed to the idea given that they were nearly wiped out themselves in the First Space War, which should give you an idea of how serious they were about the threat Windermere IV posed when they dispatched a fleet to destroy the planet. Destroying a planet only became the lesser of two evils when Windermere's government was on the verge of potentially causing a galactic holocaust with an ancient Protoculture device.

Also, does people's perception of a singer changes on whether that singer has high Spiritia count/fold receptors or not?

Nope. Basara's a very strong anima spiritia singer and everyone still thinks he's a total wanker.

I know that I should suspend my disbelief, but it kind of baffle me to see how big of a deal were the singers in-universe. Macross music is better than the usual Idol stuffs we see in real life, I admit that much, but still? The power of narrative and marketing--the media sure did mine Lynn's and the Fire Bomber's involvement in the wars, right?

Well, for the most part, Macross builds its narratives around characters who either aspire to become professional singers or were already professional singers. Activating fold receptors or using anima spiritia abilities seems to need particular mental/emotional states that people inclined towards performance professions naturally possess. We saw that Mylene had difficulty activating her sound booster when she was feeling insecure or uncertain of herself, and that Freyja's fold receptors stopped working when she was depressed and feeling insecure.

So, naturally, the singers we see saving the galaxy are usually the chart-toppers or up-and-coming chart toppers.

I wonder whether Macross or a parody show would have a terrible singer that can still do mind magic because of what he/she is born with?

Well, if you want a bad parody of Macross that features tone-deaf screeching masquerading as singing... try the Robotech franchise.

[Dark Duel]

Nope. Basara's a very strong anima spiritia singer and everyone still thinks he's a total wanker.

That's 'cuz he is a total wanker. Doesn't stop him from being a pretty badass singer though.
Which reminds me, I really gotta get around to finishing 7 at some point.