The Macross Valkyrie Thread

[False Prophet]

Do we have any idea if the Zentrandi had fought any alien race beside the Protodevlin and human?

And what happened to the survived Varauta Army personnel after war?

[Seto Kaiba]

Do we have any idea if the Zentrandi had fought any alien race beside the Protodevlin and human?

Humanity is the only "alien" race that we know for sure the Zentradi fought.

Their longtime foes, the Supervision Army, are made up of brainwashed Zentradi and Protoculture and the bodies of the Protodeviln are highly modified "super" Zentradi the Protoculture developed so they're not really alien per se. The seven Protodeviln's minds were from higher dimensional spacetime, but I'm not sure how you'd wanna count that.

They may have skirmished with the Vajra at some point or other, but we have no explicit confirmation of the fact. The Vajra do sometimes nest in Zentradi derelicts.

And what happened to the survived Varauta Army personnel after war?

Rehabilitation. The Varauta Army troops serving the Protodeviln were captured, spiritia drained, and brainwashed New UN Spacy personnel from the 13th Large-Scale Long-Distance Emigrant Fleet "Megaroad-13".

Macross the Ride protagonist Chelsea Scarlett was one of the colonists from that fleet who was rescued by the Macross 7 fleet NUNS Special Forces SVF-473 Shooting Stars. She went on to have a more or less normal childhood, became an idol singer, then quit being an idol and became a VF pilot for SMS, then a VF air racer sponsored by SMS's parent company, then eventually an MP representing the Frontier fleet in the New UN Government parliament.

[False Prophet]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarde ... 5a7a5a1ac8

An interview with Miyatake. Beside the blurb about Starship Troopers, I also found the part he talked of the aircraft carrier at Yokosuka interestin--I wonder whether had he seen the Midway, Kitty Hawk or the Independent when he started design for Macross.

That reminds me: Do we have any idea about which aircraft carrier that inspired the SDF-1? Some how it always reminds me of the Bunker Hill. (Apparently there is a non-aircraft carrier Bunker Hill stationed at Yokosuka.)

[Seto Kaiba]

An interview with Miyatake. Beside the blurb about Starship Troopers, I also found the part he talked of the aircraft carrier at Yokosuka interestin--I wonder whether had he seen the Midway, Kitty Hawk or the Independent when he started design for Macross.

I'm not sure if they visited any warship museums as research for the original Macross... I know they had the budget for research trips like that for several sequels like Macross Frontier and Macross Plus.

That reminds me: Do we have any idea about which aircraft carrier that inspired the SDF-1? Some how it always reminds me of the Bunker Hill. (Apparently there is a non-aircraft carrier Bunker Hill stationed at Yokosuka.)

Well, yes... and while it's not the kind of aircraft carrier you're thinking of, it IS one that almost every member on Mecha Talk is familiar with: the Earth Federation's carrier White Base (SCV-70) from the 1979 series Mobile Suit Gundam.

You see, early in Macross's development its original sponsor (Wiz Group) rejected Studio Nue's original concept for Battle City Megaroad as a serious space opera in a similar vein to Yamato or Gundam. The show that Wiz wanted to produce was a parody of Mobile Suit Gundam, and the early designs for the Macross reflected that desire... being increasingly tweaked, vaguely Salamis-like, riffs on the design of the White Base that transform into something that looks like a gigantic GM or Gundam. After Wiz went bankrupt and Studio Nue bought the rights for the work it'd done for Wiz, they continued to develop the design further and away from its White Base origins, but it never quite did lose all of its Salamis-class vibe which you can still see around the bow.

[Seto Kaiba]

Other ship inspirations are similarly odd.

The ARMD-class space carrier is a modern Medium Auxiliary Repair Dock (US Navy hull code: ARDM) turned upside down.

[False Prophet]

I'm not sure if they visited any warship museums as research for the original Macross... I know they had the budget for research trips like that for several sequels like Macross Frontier and Macross Plus.

I mean, the ships I listed were stationed at Yokosuka when the original Macross was made.

Well, yes... and while it's not the kind of aircraft carrier you're thinking of, it IS one that almost every member on Mecha Talk is familiar with: the Earth Federation's carrier White Base (SCV-70) from the 1979 series Mobile Suit Gundam.

And I thought the SDF-1 looks more like the Ideon... But then, the Ideon is a super GM.

That said, how important is the length of the decks of the various Macross generation to their corresponding Valkyrie. I mean even the VF-1 could do VTOL, so I imagine they don't have to make the decks as long as possible like in real life.

[Seto Kaiba]

I mean, the ships I listed were stationed at Yokosuka when the original Macross was made.

Yeah, but the Studio Nue rookies who were developing the Macross series were doing so on a razor thin budget at the time and didn't have the clout or the money to get onto a US Navy base for a research trip the way they would later have the time and influence to achieve when developing Macross Plus or Macross Frontier.

It's not like the US Navy base in Yokosuka is right up the street either. Studio Nue's office is in 3-chome, Shimioshakuji, Nerima. The US Navy Fleet Operations Center in Tomaricho is almost three hours away by train.

That said, how important is the length of the decks of the various Macross generation to their corresponding Valkyrie. I mean even the VF-1 could do VTOL, so I imagine they don't have to make the decks as long as possible like in real life.

There's no real correlation there, no... VFs have all kinds of tricks to reduce their required runway length for a takeoff like boundary layer control systems, blown flaps, thrust vectoring, and extremely high thrust to weight ratios. Most likely any VF could quite easily take off from any modern aircraft carrier, and most of those are half the size of the carriers used in the Macross franchise by dint of not being spacecraft.

It's all catapult launches too, which make total deck length largely irrelevant except in terms of the number of fighters and other craft that can queue for launch or be recovered at any given time.

You'll notice that the greater size of those carriers in Macross tends to immediately translate to more catapults so they can have more aircraft launching at any given time. The Asuka II and her sister ship Graf Zeppelin II were more or less modern aircraft carriers of average size and capability, being between 250 and 300m and carrying around 30-50 aircraft in total, launched from four catapults (two at the bow, two at the waist). That's comparable to any major nation's top of the line aircraft carrier today, like Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov, England's Queen Elizabeth, or the Chinese carrier Liaoning... except for the US, who predictably went over the top. The UN Forces' Prometheus, which was meant to be paired with the Daedalus as one of a set of essentially mobile planetary defense armies, is massive by any standard. She's almost twice the length of a modern carrier, twice as wide, with 3-4x as many fighters and twice as many catapults (8 instead of 4). You see a similar philosophy carried over to later ships like the postwar Guantanamo-class. The Guantanamo-class isn't much bigger than a modern supercarrier at just 352m, and sports a similar number of fighters to a modern supercarrier, but its entire exterior is catapult deck supporting a set of eight linear catapults... enough to launch two platoons simultaneously.

[False Prophet]

Is there any explaination for why did the Vajra evolve in a way that make them so deathly in war? I suppose that they Protoculture and the Zentrandi must have fought them long before human?

[Seto Kaiba]

Is there any explaination for why did the Vajra evolve in a way that make them so deathly in war? I suppose that they Protoculture and the Zentrandi must have fought them long before human?

None of which I am aware... it's indicated that the Protoculture extensively studied the Vajra's biotechnology for their own technological development, but it's unclear why the Vajra possessed things like energy conversion armor, heavy quantum beam weaponry, and biological homing missiles.

Whether there was some technological cross-pollination going on or the Vajra coincidentally evolved these things as ways to mine fold carbon or something like that is unclear.

[False Prophet]

Has the Super Defender from Macross the Ride appeared in animation? The same with other jet fighters in SDF Macross, like the Dragon II? Have they all been decomissioned after the Zentrandi war?

Also, I know that there are few reasons to develop the Destroid any further, but do you think one day Satelight will reuse the Destroid designs from Macross II? Somehow the Valkyrie II never clicks with me, but I like how bizzare the Phalanx Custom, Tomahawk II and Giant Monster are. And aren't the Giant Monster in particular more advanced than the Konig Monster, with all the anti-gravity technology?

[Seto Kaiba]

Has the Super Defender from Macross the Ride appeared in animation?

Nope. It's exclusive to Macross the Ride, and used exclusively by Macross Galaxy therein.

The same with other jet fighters in SDF Macross, like the Dragon II? Have they all been decomissioned after the Zentrandi war?

... they weren't decommissioned so much as that they were completely annihilated by the Zentradi bombardment of Earth's surface. They didn't have to be decommissioned because there weren't any units left intact.

Also, I know that there are few reasons to develop the Destroid any further, but do you think one day Satelight will reuse the Destroid designs from Macross II?

Nope... Macross's main timeline takes the view that Destroids are obsolete, for the most part. They're cheap cannon fodder or at-best complex unmanned air defense turrets.

And aren't the Giant Monster in particular more advanced than the Konig Monster, with all the anti-gravity technology?

I'm not sure I'd say they're more advanced just because they get around using gravity control... they don't transform or anything like that, so mechanically they're mostly a lot simpler.

[False Prophet]

That is a shame. I always want a Macross spin-off centering on ground combat and the Destroid. It would feel like something from Battletech, or so I imagine.

[Seto Kaiba]

That is a shame. I always want a Macross spin-off centering on ground combat and the Destroid. It would feel like something from Battletech, or so I imagine.

Destroids were a doomed concept from the outset, because their development was driven by assumptions about the form an alien invasion would take that turned out to be wrong.

They were designed and built for a combined arms land warfare scenario where the alien attackers would be interested in taking and holding terrain the way a modern army is. The UN Forces in the 2000s structured their surface defenses around mobile fleet based ground forces that could rapidly redeploy Destroids to the landing sites of alien attackers. That's what the Daedalus is for, and the Prometheus was a supporting mobile air force providing air cover for the ground forces. The Zentradi, however, couldn't have cared less about holding terrain... so the land war that the Destroids were designed for never came and the ones that had been lucky enough to not be on Earth when sh*t got real wound up little more than overly complex anti-aircraft guns and surface to air missile batteries.

Consequently, Destroids were largely retired to become various forms of heavy industrial or construction equipment when New UN Forces officials began reshaping the military to better fit the realities of space warfare and new ship designs that had more robust conventional anti-aircraft defenses entered use.

A Valkyrie might cost 20x what a Destroid does... but thanks to their higher mobility, a Valkyrie is offensively and defensively a much more valuable strategic asset that can pull the weight of dozens of Destroids.

[Seto Kaiba]

As far as the idea of a Destroid-centric Macross series, I expect you'd actually find it rather boring.

You see... in that brief period near the end of the Unification Wars where Destroids were actually available and were put into actual combat service, they were even more brokenly overpowered against conventional armored fighting vehicles than Mobile Suits were in Gundam's early Universal Century. If you've ever seen the MS IGLOO 2 OVA episode "King of the Land, Forward!", it'd be like that but replace the Zakus with three RX-78-2 Gundams and without the Mobile Suit side being in any real danger of taking damage. During live fire exercises against unmanned tanks that took place out in the Mojave Desert, a trial production Destroid Tomahawk proceeded to shred its way through a squadron of ten unmanned tanks in a matter of seconds without taking any damage itself.

Because this technology only came in at the very end of the Unification Wars, Destroid-on-Destroid engagements were very rare and mostly involved trial production units that used less overtechnology than mass production intent models (like the brief one-sided fight between Cheyennes and Octos units on Mayan in 2008). However, once VFs entered the equation, Destroids became rather helpless since they were more heavily armored but not nearly as agile and as such those VFs could take them to pieces with relative impunity... something that only got worse when true 1st Generation VFs entered service and those Unification Wars-era Destroid models were suddenly fighting an enemy that wasn't just faster and more agile, but also more heavily armored and with armament made for use against heavier armor than theirs. They became painfully vulnerable.

This didn't really change much even when refurbished Destroids began to see service in the 2040s and 2050s, and the solution was to just not bother manning the damn things directly. When they were in stationary use as AA guns, they were unmanned and operated remotely.

[yazi88]

The Koenig Monsters are still being used even in Delta, so they still exist in some form as a variable bomber. Although it doesn't seem too likely we'll see new variable bomber in future show, since Koenig Monster anime wise debuted in Macross Frontier (Koenig Monster debuted in the game VF-X 2 back in 1999.)

Although we do see Cheyenne II's being used as turrets and as civilian construction units too.

[Seto Kaiba]

The Koenig Monsters are still being used even in Delta, so they still exist in some form as a variable bomber.

The Konig Monster's not really a Destroid though... it just resembles one in GERWALK mode, which was a design move that cost it a lot in reliability and maintenance. The VB-6 was a surprisingly fragile aircraft without extensive and quite expensive modifications to improve its durability and make it viable as a front-line fighter.

Although it doesn't seem too likely we'll see new variable bomber in future show, since Koenig Monster anime wise debuted in Macross Frontier (Koenig Monster debuted in the game VF-X 2 back in 1999.)

It's not surprising we'd see one in Macross Deltai given that the show reuses a LOT of art assets from Macross Frontier... a move justified in-universe by the Brisingr Alliance being an economic and political bloc that has to make do with older hardware because its economy is stagnating thanks to its remoteness.

Presumably if they hadn't spent all the budget on Walkure, they'd have shown us an older model of variable bomber like the VAB-2 that was the basis for the FBz-99 in Macross 7, or the bomber variant VF-22.

Although we do see Cheyenne II's being used as turrets and as civilian construction units too.

Yeah, all reused art assets from Frontier... though the Destroids being used as heavy machinery for construction and other jobs goes all the way back to 7, when we saw a bunch of original series Destroids retrofitted for that.

[Arsarcana]

I imagine you could have a story in Macross that focused mainly on Destroids but you'd have to write the entire setting around it, since they're so outclassed by variable fighters even despite the costs that they just aren't viable in most situations and as mentioned they were originally designed for a mode of warfare that is largely irrelevant in the setting. I'm thinking maybe a world like We Made It from Niven's Known Space setting, where the environment is so nasty that a VF would have trouble making use of Fighter and GERWALK modes. Then you'd need some reason why people would be fighting over somewhere that unfriendly, which at least isn't too hard since 'Protoculture ruins' can fit the bill pretty nicely. Probably never going to happen for any number of reasons but it's at least technically plausible.

Totally unrelated question but I remember an old topic where the issue of weapon power came up when pointing out the futility of cross-franchise comparisons. Do we have any idea what the output of beam weapons in Macross is? I found a topic on Macrossworld that mentions one of the Master Files gave the YF-19's head beam gun as 9.5 MW. Do we have anything like that for other weapons, like the beam gunpods that have been showing up since Frontier?

[Seto Kaiba]

Totally unrelated question but I remember an old topic where the issue of weapon power came up when pointing out the futility of cross-franchise comparisons. Do we have any idea what the output of beam weapons in Macross is? [...]

Yeah, for several different beam weapons systems.

My favorite example for demonstrating why cross-franchise comparisons are often futile is the VF-1's laser guns. The Mauler ROV-20 coaxial laser cannons mounted on the VF-1's monitor turret (head) in arrangements of 1, 2, or 4 have an output rating of 5,000kW (5MW). That's twice the output power of the RX-178 Gundam Mk.II's beam rifle, or just 0.7MW less than the output of the MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam's beam rifle. That's also the lightest weapon the VF-1 has, so much so that it isn't considered a primary weapon, and the VF-1 can mount up to four of them.

It goes up from there. The VF-19's rear-facing Mauler REB-30G laser cannon is rated for an output of 9,500kW. The VF-1 Valkyrie's Mauler RO-X2A Strike Cannon is rated for "Dozens" of megawatts (no specific value given). The SF-3A Lancer II's beam cannons are individually rated at 750,000kW (750MW)... and it has TWO. The YF-27 and VF-27 need at least three engines to operate their heavy quantum beam gunpods, suggesting a maximum output power in excess of 1,000MW.

I found a topic on Macrossworld that mentions one of the Master Files gave the YF-19's head beam gun as 9.5 MW. Do we have anything like that for other weapons, like the beam gunpods that have been showing up since Frontier?

I'm guessing I show up prominently in that... they joke over there that any mecha discussion thread is basically an AMA for me.

[False Prophet]

I have been listening to a podcast about the recently-created US Space Force, in which they talked about the difference between the American GPS and Russian GLONASS, and how should modern automated weapons have their own backup systems (automated sextants and astronavigation systems) in place when the satellites came down.

So, when implemented on Macross, how do these matters fare? For example, is their big difference between the communication and reconnaissance protocols of different Macross fleets? Does NUNS have the highest authority to basically do whatever they want with a fleet's militarized assets, including their satellite network? Could you use Fold technology for interamospheric (short-range) communication and surveillance? How is flying blind in a VF?

Also, could there be a case whereas a migration fleet skips the VF-19 and go straight from VF-11 to VF-171? I know that after 7, even a poor migration fleet could afford monkey-model VF-19, but at that point would the increased performance from the VF-11C justify the cost?

How many years did Isamu have to do desk job? I imagine it must had been unpleasant to him, to say the least. If anything, I afraid that he and Myung eventually went nowhere because he could not fly like before. I have a family member who once dealt with a somewhat similar frustration, and it was terrible for every of his relationship.

[Seto Kaiba]

So, when implemented on Macross, how do these matters fare? For example, is their big difference between the communication and reconnaissance protocols of different Macross fleets?

Not much is actually said on this front.

Because the individual New UN Government member nations are responsible for administration and maintenance of their own individual defense forces under the auspices of the New UN Forces, there'll naturally be logistical and/or strategic differences in how their operations are run. Some fleets will differ more than others based on the use of locally-developed proprietary technologies (e.g. Macross Galaxy) or simply due to having a different strategic view when it comes to defense (e.g. the fleets using all-Ghost air forces or Macross-29 having no defense force at all).

I'd suspect that, in terms of communication and so on, that since the technology itself is pretty much standard the actual differences will be mostly in encryption rather than anything radical. Especially since these forces have to occasionally work together to reinforce each other.

Does NUNS have the highest authority to basically do whatever they want with a fleet's militarized assets, including their satellite network?

It's worth noting at this point that both the local defense forces maintained by the individual New UN Gov't nations and the supranational military maintained by the central government itself operate as the New UN Forces. It's not an exact relationship, but I find a helpful analogy is to think of the local defense forces like a National Guard unit in a particular state while the central New UN Forces are more like the national Army/Navy/Marines/etc.

Prior to the military reorganization in the wake of the Second Unification War (2051), the central New UN Forces had a huge amount of authority over the local defense forces of individual New UN Gov't members. They abused that authority a lot, which is what led to the Second Unification War, and afterwards they still have most of that authority... but are kept on a MUCH shorter leash by the New UN Government itself and an independent military oversight agency called the Barnrose Authority. They can't intervene in the affairs of an emigrant fleet or planet without the New UN Government's say-so, which makes it very difficult for them to intervene in internal disputes (why is why they didn't act against Windermere), but when they are mobilized their authority does allow them to overrule and direct the actions of the local defense forces. That's not something the locals would object to, as if the central New UN Spacy has showed up and announced they're taking control of the situation things have gone completely to hell or are about to... because the New UN Government's Biggest Stick only gets mobilized for the BIG threats. An emigrant government could try to say no, but odds are they'd do more to hurt themselves by not allowing the central New UN Forces access to their comms to coordinate things.

Could you use Fold technology for interamospheric (short-range) communication and surveillance?

You could, yeah... but fold communication is very energy-intensive, so it's not really practical to use it for short-range communications. The only times we've really seen fold communications used over short ranges are on the Ghosts that Luca used as a counter for the Vajra's extremely powerful ECM and the Macross Galaxy fleet's implant network that needed lagless ultra-high bandwidth to control so many millions of people and remove devices all at once.

How is flying blind in a VF?

VFs have a LOT of sensor systems... RADAR and LIDAR systems, infrared and optical cameras, laser range-finders and guide oscillators, inertial guidance, gravity sensors, and a host of others. The latest VFs have sensors which detect fold waves and their recon variants have fold wave radar systems. For a VF to end up flying BLIND, you'd have to have something pretty catastrophic like the total loss of the flight control computer... and at that point you're not really flying anymore, you're just aiming for a crash site.

Also, could there be a case whereas a migration fleet skips the VF-19 and go straight from VF-11 to VF-171? I know that after 7, even a poor migration fleet could afford monkey-model VF-19, but at that point would the increased performance from the VF-11C justify the cost?

Well, they all did...

After the VF-19 "won" the Project Super Nova competition, the central New UN Forces tried to adopt the VF-19A for their next main fighter to replace the VF-11B/C Thunderbolt and it was a complete fiasco. The fighter's high maneuverability and massive engine power made the first production model every bit as uncontrollable as those YF-19 prototypes that'd put four of their test pilots in the ICU and two more in coffins. The New UN Gov't didn't like the idea of exporting a model of VF that had demonstrated the ability to independently penetrate their top-notch orbital defense network protecting Earth either. To put the cherry on it, the VF-19 was a bank-breakingly expensive aircraft that most emigrant fleets really couldn't afford to build many of. So between the cost of the aircraft, the performance issues, and export restrictions slapped on the VF-19 and VF-22 by the New UN Gov't in the early 2040s, the VF-19 never really got a chance to become the next main fighter and its role as the 4th Gen main VF was taken over by the VF-171 Nightmare Plus.

All of this meant the the VF-19 was effectively sidelined into a Special Forces role alongside its one-time rival the VF-22. They were built in very small numbers for elite special forces units, but never saw widespread adoption in any New UN Government nation's defense force. The much cheaper, much more manageable VF-171 became their next main fighter, in the fleets that didn't opt for Ghosts instead, and even the wealthiest fleets only produced a hundred or so VF-19s at most for their elite special forces.

How many years did Isamu have to do desk job? I imagine it must had been unpleasant to him, to say the least. If anything, I afraid that he and Myung eventually went nowhere because he could not fly like before. I have a family member who once dealt with a somewhat similar frustration, and it was terrible for every of his relationship.

We don't know the specifics of his post-Plus career... just that as a "reward" for his little stunt, he was put on a career path towards a desk job. By 2057 he was a New UN Spacy reservist, and by 2059 was working for SMS as a cargo pilot.