Macross general Thread

Well, with a 30 year lifespan they'd have to be having kids around 15 or earlier, if responsibility for child-raising falls on the parents as it does in human society.

It also probably means they mature faster than humans. Becoming a physical adult at 10 or 12 wouldn't be surprising with a lifespan that short. Interesting that Freyja still acts like an adolescent, I wonder if she'd be considered incredibly childish by her people's standards?

In this weeks episode of Macross Delta, we get an info dump, more fanservice (of a different kind), Hayate dancing to the ending theme, and Messar being a buzz kill.

So planet Windermere is invading the rest of the cluster because they're a bunch of aristocratic pricks who found some old Protoculture toys and decided that made them Supreme Rulers of the Galaxy. Even their cause for war is so damn flimsy: they're already independent, it's transparent as hell they just want to conquer the place.

So... I had thought that Windermere were the ones behind the Var. They're not? They're just hijacking it? Then where is the Var coming from?

More Freyja fun in this episode though. I swear, she never stops being adorable and entertaining to watch. And Mirage finally brings up her grandparents... shame that conversation got cut short by Hayate being Hayate.

Speaking of Hayate, he's reminding me more and more of Nekki Basara, except slightly more socially adjusted and not nearly so self-centered.

edited 1st May '16 10:39:15 PM by DarkHunter

Windemere is getting a lot less sympathetic

Isn't this supposed to have a love triangle? So far we just have a few apparent couples

Messer is such a dick he wraps around and becomes funny

Probably should have skipped the ED if they were going to use it as an INS

Windermere got fucked over spectacularly bad by Earth, and see it as an oppressive colonial power. Helping boot it out of their entire galactic neighbourhood is just being neighbourly.

Notice how the entire leadership seem to be idealists (even the sinister-looking chancellor is trying to minimise bloodshed), with the Knights being the more hawkish faction. They seem to be entirely genuine about what they want. I imagine that the real problem will be whatever the fuck they're unleashing with Var Syndrome. It's clearly alien to them and very hard to control. Only a matter of time before Windermereans start getting their brains eaten, and/or the syndrome develops its own sapience.

Windemere might be genuine about their beliefs, but their beliefs appear to have them as the rightful rulers of the galaxy

That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Personally I find Basara the least likeable of all the Macross leads.

Not Galaxy, just their own Brisinger cluster. Their ambitions doesn't seem reach to Milky way and NUNS settlements there.

edited 2nd May '16 7:34:22 AM by Tenzen12

Mylene is totally awesome, though. <3

I don't know about you, but I've seen no evidence of this. All we have for that are the Windermerean politicians' word, and of course they're going to say that about someone they just declared war on.

In all other cases throughout the franchise of the New UN making contact with another civilization in the course of their expansion, they've been shown as very popular among those they've made contact with. Regarding the others in the star cluster, the Ragnans don't seem to have any desire whatsoever to be "free" of Earth's civilization, and we're shown no signs of distrust or discontent from any other faction.

I cannot see the Windermereans as justified at all in this. They wanted independence? Fair enough, that's their choice. They apparently received it. They have no right to try to "liberate" the other cultures of the star cluster when, as far as we've seen, none of those other cultures have reached out for them to do so. It's pure conquest. And they're justifying it by saying that they're the "true heirs of the Protoculture", which rings alarm bells in my head. They're saying it's their right to rule over (oh, I'm sorry, "guide") the others. They're no better than they claim the New UN to be. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Not to mention the Windermereans launched completely unprovoked assaults against civilian population centers prior to declaring war, and are making use of mind-controlled soldiers in their attacks, showing complete disregard for basic sapient rights.

edited 2nd May '16 12:41:40 PM by DarkHunter

We've seen a colony fleet with corrupt, genocidal leadership in Frontier. Two, actually, if you count Galaxy. The Windermereans' story is plausible, and the veterans of the war for independence on the Earth side in this episode don't contradict it - they obviously have some bad memories.

Of course they have bad memories, it was a war. War = bad memories for the survivors, regardless of any other factors.

edited 2nd May '16 12:43:20 PM by DarkHunter

Right, but when our protagonists asked about it, the older and wiser folks present seemed to by trying to gently steer them around to 'both sides often have a point in a war' rather than 'nope, they're wrong and evil'. Absolutely nobody in the cast has condemned Windermere for their casus belli, and given the gigantic war crimes they've been responsible for by unleashing the Var Syndrome on civilian areas, that implies a great deal about the justifiability of their cause.

...I'm sorry, but did you just suggest that if someone commits war crimes, their cause is implied to be justified? That's completely backwards.

In any case, if Windermere does have justification for their war, we have not been shown it. All we've been shown is a group of aristocrats who believe they are "the True Heirs of the Protoculture" making unprovoked attacks after having successfully achieved independence for themselves.

There's a reason Show, Don't Tell is an old adage of writers. If the writers of Macross Delta want us to be sympathetic to Windermere, they are doing a frankly terrible job at it.

No, I said that the fact that the Windermereans aren't being roundly condemned by the members of the cast who know the whole story despite their appalling war crimes implies that they have a pretty good, justifiable reason for what they're doing. Yes, we haven't seen it yet, but the setup seems to suggest 'big, tragic sob story to be revealed later'. It's not a violation of 'show, don't tell', it's setup for information they can't reveal yet without killing the pacing. Patience, dude.

Yeah, I know they might reveal more later. I'm basing my current stance on what's been revealed so far. My opinions may change depending on how the story develops.

They're going to need one hell of a good justification to make me think a war crime is warranted though.

Looking back on my comments, I think I should apologize. For some reason I seem to be very heated right now, and I don't think that's a good thing.

The odds that the Windermereans will remain the antagonists for the entire series are vanishingly low. I'm virtually certain that they'll either be redeemed at the end or they'll join forces with Walkure and Delta Platoon partway through to fight the real bad guys.

Other than that, I'm going to echo Hylarn's comment. If Mirage is supposed to be in a Love Triangle with Hayate and Freya, it's not terribly convincing at this point in the show. It's easy to imagine how it gets there, but they're in danger of running out the clock on the audience at this rate.

Mirage self-identifies as a warrior above all else, and is a combat pilot alongside Hayate. I imagine that now that the cluster is gearing up for full-scale war, they'll start getting drawn closer together.

I sure hope so. I'm not digging the way this feels like a one-sided love triangle. It's giving me a really bad Aquarion Evol vibe even though I really like Freyja. I don't know much about Macross, but I've heard for years that their love triangles were legendary, okay that might be exaggerating. XD Though I support Mirage, I still want this to be a fair fight.

edited 2nd May '16 9:49:02 PM by diyedas

Legendary? Buddy, Macross is the Trope Codifier for that in the mecha genre. It's less "mecha story with a love triangle" and more "love triangle with mechas on the side".

edited 3rd May '16 12:56:01 AM by amitakartok

The only real couple so far in the series has been Makina/Reina and watching the latter feed the former while she was busy looking up fighter specs was pretty cute.

As for the whole Freyja/Hayate/Mirage triangle, at this point it's more of a friendship than a love triangle, with the first two being very close and Mirage in the role of the kid who wants to be friends but is a bit unsure about how to go about it. I liked how Hayate cut of her story about her grandparents, which she obviously told intending to cheer up Freyja but he was right in saying that it wasn't relevant (and besides, wouldn't they have learned about it in school anyways).

Time will tell if Windermere has a point or are more like Germany in WWI, full of resentment occassionally justified but ultimately wrongheaded. Macross so far never has gone for true black and white conflicts, even when one side clearly was in the wrong and I trust the series not to screw this up.

It's an interesting conflict that's being set up. On the one hand you have NUNS, with an overwhelming conventional military might at their disposal, on the other Windermere, which has gone the route of many weaker powers in the past and opted for unconventional, some might even say unfair or immoral ways of fighting: terrorism through the Var outbreaks and then mind control using their wind powers.

Wait a tic, Delta has militaristic nuns in it?!

NUNS = New UN Spacy

It's the military of the Earth-based government.

Making dumb acronyms is almost as much a Macross tradition as love triangles (see also "Alien Space Ship 1" from Macross Zero).

Why are we still dealing with reasons to fight?

How and why did they turn asteroids into TV screens?

I think Mikumo is my favourite character at the moment. Not busy moping

We're still dealing with this because Hayate and Freya are still new to the whole war thing. I think it was necessary. Most war shows take an entire episode for the heroes to figure that out and in this show it was dealt with in about 5 minutes.

Edit:Also, this week in Macross Delta compairing your aircraft to a girl, more sing, space dancing, and stories about first kills.

edited 8th May '16 7:27:52 PM by mega-dark