...*sigh*
I guess you're right. Silly or not, the Obscenely Fucking Huge robot is one of Macross' defining traits - it showed up in both of the two series that featured large-scale space battles, after all.
Mrgh. Anyway, sketching out what you're talking about, the cruiser mode has the ship sort of flying on its 'back', and the lower two engines end up as a sort of backpack? And the entire battle mode would look a little like a gorilla if it weren't for the BFG sitting on its shoulders?
Hmm. Possibly the fold drive and main gun weren't in sequence - it's just that the power runs for the latter were built a leeeeeetle too close to the former for real safety.
The reason the lines just weren't re-lain, or duplicated if the former fold drive bays had too much Wierd Shit was simply that there wasn't enough of the required superconducting cabling on hand to stretch the whole way. Earth might have had it stockpiled, or been able to duplicate it in time, but the SDF-1 alone... So, if you can't run a phone line to the mountain, the engineers decided to try bringing the mountain to Muhammed.
Another possibility is that the Zentreadi might have a weapon or special system or some such which suppresses the function of quantum beam weapons - makes space tougher, as it were - which, in turn, means that, if the ship should happen to be forced to run through its limited supply of shipkilling warheads before it could get an onboard factory up and running, the Daedelus Attack might be the only valid option.
The other thing to keep in mind about the plausability of the transformation is that there is no way in hell the ship's original builders were designing for this possibility, which, in turn, would mean that they're pretty much going to have to fabricate every joint and extra SIF generator in the system on site, then retrofit it in without the benefit of a drydock.
Take, for example, the chance that the SDF-1 didn't have the delta-v to go straight to Earth, but instead had to hopscotch from Neptune to, say, Saturn to refuel. If the Zenteadi deploy their supressor weapon for the first time during that part of the journey, then we have a nice, tense plotline where Our Gallant Crew have to slip away and hide in the rings until the frantic engineers can complete the neccessary modifications needed to allow the actual destruction of an enemy capital ship.
Hmm. It could be made to work.
Ja, -n
(Compromise is a part of any cooperative venture.)
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
I guess you're right. Silly or not, the Obscenely Fucking Huge robot is one of Macross' defining traits - it showed up in both of the two series that featured large-scale space battles, after all.
Mrgh. Anyway, sketching out what you're talking about, the cruiser mode has the ship sort of flying on its 'back', and the lower two engines end up as a sort of backpack? And the entire battle mode would look a little like a gorilla if it weren't for the BFG sitting on its shoulders?
Hmm. Possibly the fold drive and main gun weren't in sequence - it's just that the power runs for the latter were built a leeeeeetle too close to the former for real safety.
The reason the lines just weren't re-lain, or duplicated if the former fold drive bays had too much Wierd Shit was simply that there wasn't enough of the required superconducting cabling on hand to stretch the whole way. Earth might have had it stockpiled, or been able to duplicate it in time, but the SDF-1 alone... So, if you can't run a phone line to the mountain, the engineers decided to try bringing the mountain to Muhammed.
Another possibility is that the Zentreadi might have a weapon or special system or some such which suppresses the function of quantum beam weapons - makes space tougher, as it were - which, in turn, means that, if the ship should happen to be forced to run through its limited supply of shipkilling warheads before it could get an onboard factory up and running, the Daedelus Attack might be the only valid option.
The other thing to keep in mind about the plausability of the transformation is that there is no way in hell the ship's original builders were designing for this possibility, which, in turn, would mean that they're pretty much going to have to fabricate every joint and extra SIF generator in the system on site, then retrofit it in without the benefit of a drydock.
Take, for example, the chance that the SDF-1 didn't have the delta-v to go straight to Earth, but instead had to hopscotch from Neptune to, say, Saturn to refuel. If the Zenteadi deploy their supressor weapon for the first time during that part of the journey, then we have a nice, tense plotline where Our Gallant Crew have to slip away and hide in the rings until the frantic engineers can complete the neccessary modifications needed to allow the actual destruction of an enemy capital ship.
Hmm. It could be made to work.
Ja, -n
(Compromise is a part of any cooperative venture.)
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."