[RFC] Being You is Deculture

[Black Aeronaut]

<snip>*Stuff about games here* </snip>

Thanks.  Seeing as these are all probably Japanese language only (fuck you very much, Harmony Gold!) I'll have to see if anyone has done any English patches on these.  Given how big the Macross fandom is, I would be surprised if they didn't exist.

<yet more snippage>

I was planning on using an emulator anyhow, that way I don't need to worry about getting a hacked unit.  Though I'll need a PC with plenty of horsies under the hood to handle all that.

I generally prefer the blog version because it's easier to have open in multiple tabs at once and navigate around than multiple copies of a combined word processor document and the only really important inaccuracies are easy enough to remember when I get to those missions. An actual translation of the game script has never happened because while the data can be ripped from the disk all the dialogue is mixed in with Lua scripting for it and all the other game events, and no one has gone to the effort of untangling that mess. Those who can speak Japanese have repeatedly assured me that the plot and dialogue you imagine to fit the actions Marvel Method comics style will be better than the very bland and generic JRPG fare that the game actually contains, however.

Ahhh.  Well then, maybe someone should write that instead of the original script?  It wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened, though this time it would be for the great good.

Oh, and see my immediately previous post for a couple of corrections, Mina's origin in particular. While it would be much more interesting if she was a Protoculture survivor and that's what stick in my memory, officially it is not the case. Either way she's got a bad case of protagonist amnesia (the role is shared relatively evenly between Leon, Mina, and Aisha, and they are not a love triangle for once - Leon and Aisha's relationship progresses mostly smoothly, with Mina in a younger sister type role to both) and pretty much only knows what the stasis tube naughty tentacled out of Leon (the mandatory PC) when he found her until various plot-relevant information is later pulled out of another old Protoculture computer system, and then it's not so much about her (aside from the line that I can't help but imagine is "Mama and papa were... Mama and papa were perverts! Ain't nobody wants to see that!" before she passes out) as about how the final boss was sealed in a superdimensional space dumpster for 500,000 years and why.

Still, I'd really love to have seen the look on Lord Roid's face in Delta when after explaining his stupid plan and giving the justification that the Windamians are the true inheritors of the Protoculture so they get to decide, Grown Up Mina turned out to be Walkure and Chaos's mysterious backer Lady M and said, "Yeah, no. I'm actually from the Protoculture, and it's not like that. Now sit down, shut up, and listen to my song!"

HAH!!!

It's more likely I think that Lady M is actually Minmei, though there's no iron clad justification for that either, and I really lost enthusiasm in the second half of the series when the padding became obvious (it was originally intended for 13 episodes and got doubled after production had already started, and it really, really shows) so they may even have explained it and I just forgot.

Weird.  I kinda got that vibe from Delta just the first few episodes in.  That and it just felt waaayyyy too much like it was aping AKB0048, and doing a terrible job of it.

Someone should do an unironic abridged version of Delta if this is really the case.

But I'm still gonna roll with the idea that the reason MEGAROAD 1 disappears with all hands is because meeting up with the Vajra gave them a HUGE hint about how to use Katherine's backup-seed as a means to find Garrick.

And it's going to be FUN FUN FUN when the MEGAROAD shows up in Tenchiverse Earth's cislunar space and everyone shits a platinum brick.  I already went over this before earlier in the thread, but in case you skipped over it...

They use Katherine's back-up seed as a sort of means to pull them to Katherine by way of a controlled mis-fold - punching out through their universe and into whatever universe Garrick is in at the time.  But instead, they get dragged all the way to Tenchiverse instead because that's where the connection actually leads - back to Funaho-no-ki where Katherine sources her power.

So imagine these colonists all showing up to just-shy-of-21st-century Earth - more or less just as they remember it, only without some of the more spectacular craters left by the Anti-UN war.  Yeah, cue the massive outcry of catharsis from the ones that remember, and the wonder and joy of the ones who were too young to see it before.  Some of them are gonna quietly settle back on Earth and subtly begin introducing Overtechnology.  It'll upset some apple carts, but after a decade or two Earth will begin building its very own Super Dimensional Fortresses which are potent enough to allow Earth to stand on its own in the political spheres of the Galaxy Alliance and the Empire of Jurai.  As well as a total barrier system for the entirety of Earth along with a healthy smattering of Grand Cannons.

("Oh, you brought a planet-sized battleship?  Nice job, but we'll be calling that bluff of yours - we've turned our planet into the galaxy's biggest weapon system.  Not even the goddamn Death Star has shit on us.")

the top brass will demand that Garrick be remanded into their custody on charges of high treason.

Uh... how? He's served faithfully ever since joining the Spacy. I mean, they could get him for being an illegal immigrant easy, but treason? I suppose that's another point for why everyone else is, as you put it,

It's more or less BS, but basically they're making a technicality of Garrick explaining the Human race to Buldoza.  And in a sense, they're not wrong.  Buldoza decided based on what he heard that Earth should be destroyed before it can do anymore damage to the Zentradi.

going "Oh HEEEEELLLLLLLL NAH!"

Now that I think about it, this would cause

The author is thinking about and refining ideas based on my comments! Yay!

I helped!

Indeed.

And upon further reflection, once the Spacey's high command has been relieved of duty, the interim command will is going to change things up a bit.

However, no one is going to be disembarking.

Why?

Because if Earth is in the crosshairs, then the Macross is probably the safest place in the galaxy for those people.  In fact, they asked if they can take on more people - namely family members of people on the Macross.  Which means not only Kaifun, but also Minmei's parents will be aboard the SDF-1.

Now this is gonna be incredibly interesting to see what it's gonna do to Minmei.  On one side she'll have her parents trying to pull her away from the career she has her heart set on.  On another side, she'll have Garrick holding his hand out to her, and telling her she can be anything she wants and he'll love her no matter what.  And then on a third side, there will be safe, familiar Lynn Kaifun.

But only familiar to a point.

As I mentioned before, Garrick warns Minmei about Kaifun.  And while this really does upset her - How can her precious cousin who she thinks of as a brother be such a horrible and perverted person? - but on the other hand, Garrick has never lied to her.  He dressed up some of the details, and he even told her that he was holding back on some things.  And over the course of Minmei's soul searching, she comes to the realization that Garrick has NEVER given her any reason to distrust him.

And that's when that warning Garrick left her with starts to echo in her mind.  Even if Garrick was lying, it had been a couple of years since she last saw Kaifun.  People do change.  So she watches Kaifun carefully, and finds that she is horrified by the person he has become - rude, egotistical, narcissistic, and more worrying of all, possessive.

Over her.

She thought it was strange when he tried to talk Mr. Truant into letting him be her manager, but it never sounded any warning bells until now.

Feeling torn, she goes to Garrick.  Even if she is upset with him, he always had good insights, and that had just steered her from getting into a really unsavory situation.  Of course, she apologizes to him for not believing him, but then turns around and asks him just how is she to know that she can get along with the fiancees?

Garrick hands her a tablet.  "You can ask them yourself."  Cue a rapid-fire exchange of letters as Minmei asks questions, gets answers, and gets to know the women who would be her sister-wives if she did take Garrick up on his offer.

Later, Minmei will say that it was ironic that they had gone from her chasing him to him chasing her, and that it was weird to have the shoe on the other foot, even if Garrick wasn't pursuing her as actively as she pursued him.

Aside from that...  The SDF-1 is going to get massively reinforced.  It still won't hold a candle to the Main Fleet, but it will be far better than what they had in the original timeline.  They even repair as much damage to the ship as they can, and they even replace the fold drive with the one that was intended to go into the SDF-2 (later MEGAROAD-1).  Which means that they can now fire the main gun in both configurations.

As for why go to the trouble of replacing to fold drive?  Simple: a Final Contingency.  Should things come to the worse case scenario, then their orders are to get the hell out of dodge and find a new world to reestablish humanity upon.

Oh, and they also fix that pesky little problem with not being able to fire the main gun when using the pin-point barriers, and this time simply fire a hole through Buldoza's fortress so they can enter without messing the SDF-1 up six ways to Sunday.  Yes, that's right.  Once it's all said and done, the Macross is STILL going to be a viable battlewagon for the Spacey.

Apparently the bit where the SDF-1 is cruising around the surface of Earth was supposed to be a lot longer in the initial conceptions of the show, basically doing a tour of all the world's most significant natural and architectural wonders and collecting recordings and souvenirs (to have after they get blown away in the bombardment) before being chased off by UN units. With how long your story is already committed to being, something like this would probably be best handled as a time skip montage of one to three paragraph scenes for a few representative samples before moving on to the next stage of the plot with something like "our world tour was brought to an end by..." etc. if you do it at all, but I think it would be cool, especially with the warning they got to bunker up NOW in this version.

I do hope you still use the Ottowa location though. With them steadfastly refusing to fully join the UN it would be a chance to see some SV-51 (or more likely at this piont the re-engined, space capable SV-52) units in action, maybe have Roy give a whistle and say something about how he's glad they're on his side this time, and that they hold up surprisingly well even compared to the VF-1 rather than its predecessor. Even better if he gets to give one a test flight, naturally just before an attack rolls in and he's stuck fighting in it like Hikaru in the VF-1D back at the beginning. The most immediate difference is that the SV-51 is a GIANT compared to any other unit in this time frame, head and shoulders taller than a VF-0 let alone a runty VF-1, and it has its secondary guns in the wing roots/chest rather than head turrets.

RE Kamjin and Azonia, the thing that amuses me most is that she looks basically exactly like Sylia Stingray (2030s, not remake) with a dye job. Giving them something more than that and a barely-hinted plot is one of the major points to look forward to here.

Heh.  Hikaru and Garrick would have this moment...

"Betcha twenty ration credits that Max can take 'em."

"Sucker bet."

Well, I'll probably at least remember the title after this, but it doesn't really sound like my cuppa from your description. Eh, we'll see when Garrick gets there. (The real world has all the darkness and pushy assholes I need, and then many, many more... and only in anime does biology and willpower work that way. Yes yes, I know, think of the catgirls. Still. "Be careful with all that edge, you might cut yourself!" )

Eh, it's not so bad.  At the very least, it's not Greek Tragedy levels.  More like a lighter version of a Shakespearean Tragedy.  And it is definitely not the same sort of messed up that is Code Geass.  Man, I hate the direction that one went.

And this really doesn't have much to do with BlackAeronaut's fic, does it? Sorry, BA.

It's alright.  I asked anyhow.  And I've decided that they might be interesting to have in the story, but if they do show up, then my story would go much differently from the game.