Macross SEED

[Acyl]

---

As a rule of the thumb, chinese names have three characters, each with one syllable [...] As a result, Ningshui Jialan is not a likely chinese name [...] Lyn Min-mei, however, is a perfectly logically constructed traditional chinese name(Surname before personal name).

---

As a clarification (from a native speaker) Chinese names actually have two to three syllables. Three is simply the most common. Family names are one syllable. Given names are two - but can be one. I know a guy called Lim Jit, for example.
It IS theoretically possible to have a four-syllable name. But that'd actually be Mongolian or something, and not strictly Chinese. That's pretty much unknown these days, tho - I've only seen it in history books.
-- Acyl

[Valles]

Somehow I never thought I'd be here. I knew we were good, but if you had told me a year ago that the EDTO would even want a school band to play at the launch of their prized Macross, let alone that it would be mine that won the priveledge!
I remember reading once that the planes that carried out the atomic bomb attacks at the end of the second World War had launched from Tinian - which means that this island has ended two wars, one then and another later, by catching the Macross.
Speaking of which, I had to yell at Clara today - even if it does rhyme with a sport, Macross is a good name! The last survivor of her crew, alone, guides her shattered ship in to a safe landing, only living long enough to gasp out her own name to the first exploration team to reach her, and with her last breath, yet... I mean, how much more appropriate can you expect to be? It's romantic, dammit!
So, anyway, when we got off the plane at the runway, the ship was the first thing you noticed. I could go on and on about what its numbers are like - it's so famous I can't think of anyone who couldn't - and I've seen pictures, of course, but until you can actually see what an artificial mountain a kilometer tall and nine long looks like, there's nothing that can really bring home the way it dominates the landscape. A couple of the flutes got all vapory about how it made them feel like it was looming over them and about to fall, but they were those same two who always kept having student-teacher fantasies about Mr. Ramius, so I don't think even he took them seriously.
Then we suffered through customs - and honestly, does anyone really believe that some whacko would try and smuggle a bomb in in a tuba case at this late date? - and then got stuffed into our hotel. There must be at least five times as many people crammed onto Tinian as the island's usually got, and boy is it showing in the quality of the accommodations! Once we got over fighting about who slept where, the rest of the clarinets were all set to leave and go shopping and I had a hell of a time convincing them to learn the local shelters. I know I'm a little paranoid about that, maybe, but after the tanks blew don't I have a right? {Ed. Note: A reference to the Dec. 9, 2049 OTO cruise missile strike against the Singapore Fleet Base's fuel depot.}
And then we went shopping and it was impossibly crowded and tiring, so I'm going to leave you here and cover that in the morning.
-From the Diary of Shui Jialan, August 27, 2057
* * * * *
OPENING THEME
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
"" Estevan Frade yelped in the Mexico City gutter-spanish of his childhood as nineteen tons of speeding, heavily armed metal roared past barely ten feet above the cockpit bubble of his stuntplane.
The jet that had buzzed him was an obvious fighter plane, twin-engined with a broad fuselage and variable geometry wings, almost like a narrower version of the American F-14 from the last century save for its V-pattern tail. By the time Estevan had pulled his heart out of his mouth and restrained himself from jerking his plane out of the sky, the imposing warbird was well into the beginning of a picture-perfect recreation of the acrobatic routine he had finished just a few moments earlier.
He recognized the type, of course - the hybrid air-space fighter the EDTO governments had produced using the Macross's technology was quite well known, at least in its broad strokes, and from what Baron had told him, the squadrons on Tinian and its protecting fleet had been the first to receive the new machines.
His eyes narrowed. He -also- knew that showing off the plane's capabilities by setting it up to outperform an opponent designed for agility above all else would be -just- the sort of thing that would appeal to his adoptive big brother's sense of humor. Never mind that the routine his boss had talked him into was one that'd be relatively easy for any jet with a pair of seperate vectored engines to duplicate...
And okay, yeah, maybe it was funny. But damned if he'd let it be -him- that the joke was on at the end!
On the other hand, he'd been hired to put on a show, so he'd have to come up with something that was both flashier than the original plan -and- within his 'opponent's' capabilities, to stretch the performance out before he -really- cut loose.
He found himself starting to smile as he tugged his small biplane into a low orbit around the air show's cleared flight zone. Baron'd -never- live this down.
* * * * *
The screams around her hurt Jialan's ears, but she was on her feet and yelling anyway, just like everyone else on the temporary bleachers set up along the old airstrip's runway, as two planes came in for a landing in unison just as perfect as if the brightly painted little biplane had been attached to its larger military counterpart's wingtip with a steel bar. Whether the aireal game of challenge-counterchallenge had been genuinly impromptu or not, it had still been a hell of a show, as either pilot put their machine through contortions that she, for one, would have declared flatly impossible if she hadn't just seen them with her own eyes, growing closer and closer to the ground and a dangerous crash with every iteration they did.
On the podium set up just short of the apron, she could see Colonel Korbinian snatch the microphone away from the spluttering Master of Ceremonies and step forward with a wave and a movie star's polished grin. "That went even better than I though," he said in a confidential tone. "Did you all enjoy yourselves?"
The crowd roared as individual replies were swallowed in a rush of other voices, but the tone was positive.
"Great! That might let me survive once Captain Trivedi catches up to me for staging this. In the meantime, since you already know Mister Frade, why don't I introduce you to the other star of our show?"
Roar.
Miranda - the girl who had taken over the First Chair position in the flute section from Jialan when she transferred from New Zealand - leaned over and shouted past the din. "i hope he's as cute as the first one! i love a man in a uniform!"
The shorter girl poked her friend in the arm. "i think he's talking about the plane!"
It's hard to whine at the top of your lungs, but somehow Miranda managed it. "that's no fun..."
"Great!" the famous ace enthused from the stage. "Ladies and gentlement, I give you: The Vee Eff One VALKYRIE!"
By this time, the stubby little stuntplane had taxied off out of sight, and an airport firetruck was towing its sleek 'nemesis' back to where the crowds could see it easily.
Korbinian opened his mouth to continue his speech, but was cut off by the sudden and all-too-familiar rising howl of an air raid siren.
Jialan swallowed, mouth dry. Not -again-!
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
Kitinoja Joukahainen stood on the main floor of his flagship, leaning against the pillar supporting his command station with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed in thought. The cruiser sent to scout after the Enemy's 417th squadron had returned undamaged and unmolested - a rarity. The sensor data it had gathered indicated that they had cannabalized the smaller vessels of their fleet to gather sufficient parts to attempt to return the squadron's remaining battleship to full function. The fact that the vessel's rip-wake terminated was a good suggestion that the effort had failed, but equally possible was that the Enemy had placed a service base in the final system - the single golden star's entry in their navagation charts bore only one cryptic line of glyphs, dating back to the Makers themselves: 'Restricted for research use.'
Save for that - nothing. Not a single visit by Zentradi vessels in all the thousands of years from this moment back to the arrival of the Others.
"The fleet reports ready in all respects, Commander."
Joukahainen gave an internal sigh - never external, he was a man who was neither loquacious nor demonstrative - and cleared his face before issuing a single order. "Fold."
The technicians manning the control stations along the perimeter of the bullet-shaped flag bridge began to read off the final checklist:
"Rip-points charged!"
"Power feeds preheated!"
"Capacitors ready!"
"Coordinates loaded!"
"Initializing flotilla synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing squadron synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing wing synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing fleet synchronization!"
"Complete! All units sychronized!"
"Coordinates accurized!"
"Rip-point discharge in five..."
"Four..."
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
"Ze-"
--
"-ro! Fold successful! Standing down to general quarters!"
There was a pause in the flow of talk, then a solemn announcement. "Cruiser 2901304 acoherent on arrival. No survivors."
Dissapointing, but not truly a surprise. The '1304's stabalization field generator had been showing signs of failure for years, and with no replacement parts arriving from the Fleet Depot to replace those lost to wear and tear, it was only the first such loss the Second Division's Ninth Fleet had suffered - and would not be the last.
"Navigation?" Joukahainen rumbled, eyes fixed on the tactical display across the front of the compartment.
"Emission spectrum and inner planet seperation matches target system. Reference pulsar locations also match. Transit location was ten lightsecond outside the third planet, four ahead local relative, three positive galactic relative. We are on target. Velocity match maneuvers underway. Estimate another three hours to locate a moon suitable for reaction mass refinement; tankers are standing by."
"Battle scan?"
"Seven vessels estimated as one-half megaton under atomic drive between the third world's local system and various other locations. All other contacts are within the third planetary subsystem. Seventeen more of half-megaton class beginning maneuvers within local area, also three more seventy-five percent larger. One seven megaton contact in high planetary orbit. One five-hundred megaton contact at planetary-companion Lagrange Point One. Three five-hundred megaton contacts in low planetary orbit."
The commander raised his eyebrows slightly at that. Those largest four contacts each had a displacement fifty percent greater than his own cruisers, and nearly a third that of his battleships - an unheard of scale of construction and operations to see in an isolate Micronian or corrupted world.
"General fleet is to assume combat formation. Cruiser '1303 is to probe the contact at Lagrange Point One. '1301, the high orbital contact. '1302, one of the monitors under way. '1305, assist '1303."
There was a short pause while the order was relayed, then the communications technician reported, "Fleet forming up. Thirteenth flotilla acknowledges recipt of orders and is executing."
* * * * *
Zentradi Loyalist Cruiser 2901301 folded out less than a hundred kilometers from a gangly, awkward tangle of girders, struts, cylindrical pods and acre upon acre of photoelectric paneling. As always in a potential combat situation, the men of its marine legion were already waiting in their bays, fully armored and ready to launch at only a moment's notice, but except for the men who had folded themselves into the cramped cockpits of their recon pods, none expected that they might die that day.
For a while, when their recon pods were allowed to close with the station unmolested and without comment past a transmitted series of nonsensical bleeps, it seemed that they might be correct.
Any station on which Extra-Vehicular Activities are a regular occurance will inevitably pick up a halo of junk - loose rivets, lost tools, even things as simple as a sock accidentally left out in the airlock - and Internation Space Station Guardian was no exception. If allowed to grow dense enough - or if the luck was bad - these debris could easily prove a fatal hazard to navigation to and from the station. To prevent such an accident, EDTO Skywatch had a policy of halting travel every six months to allow station-based work pods equipped with very short wave radars to go over the immediate area and police any such hazards.
Last time through, they had missed a single large piece, and it was that which struck the lead craft of the '1301's scout flight, destroying it utterly.
The late officer's men, however, were experienced and well trained, and responded to the danger with a counterattack upon the only threat detectable - the station itself.
There were no survivors.
* * * * *
ENDING THEME
* * * * *
"Yo, folks! Estevan here, and boy, am I having a day. First there's Baron's idea of a joke, then I get insulted by the prettiest girl I've ever met, and now there's some old hag yelling at me about an invasion of space aliens!"
"Drop the attitude, mister, and do your job!"
"What are you smoking, lady? I didn't sign nothing!"
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[drakensis]

---

As a rule of the thumb, chinese names have three characters, each with one syllable [...] As a result, Ningshui Jialan is not a likely chinese name [...] Lyn Min-mei, however, is a perfectly logically constructed traditional chinese name(Surname before personal name).

---

Eh, sorry. I really didn't know that. But it's easily fixed. I like Jialan so would Shui Jia-lan be better or Ning Jia-lan?
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Acyl]

---

Eh, sorry. I really didn't know that. But it's easily fixed. I like Jialan so would Shui Jia-lan be better or Ning Jia-lan?

---

'Ning Jia-lan' (or Jialan, Jia Lan, etc) would actually be far more likely. Ning is a fairly well-established family name, while Shui isn't...far as I know. I'm hardly a scholar.
But! Shui Jialan isn't impossible. 'Shui' could simply be a variant romanisation of 'xu' or 'xue'. Or in a Chinese dialect other than Mandarin. Or something her grandfather registered at the name-change office because he thought it sounded cool...so either works.
(and yes, 'Jialan' is a neat name)
-- Acyl

[classicdrogn]

Well, I know I'm liking it so far, for sure. Good on ya!
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

---

Well, I know I'm liking it so far, for sure. Good on ya!

---

Great!
Anyway, if anybody here happens to have even a minimal grasp of Spanish, I could use your help.
See, the pattern I had been thinking of for the opening 'episode teasers' would be that they'd be each character's first person look at that point in time - only, each of them is doing it in different contexts. Jialan is writing in a diary, but Katsuro is talking to a reporter, and Lydia's being debriefed at some post-war military tribunal.
The Spanish? Well, Estevan's writing letters home to his mother. ^_^ Particularly, I'd like to know what he might call her, and what she might call him.
Other things... well, I'd like to figure out the SDF-1's actual itinerary, along with attendant delta-v needs. Departure, arrival, etc. I've done some checking using online calculator thingies, and Neptune and Saturn look like they're going to be close enough that the trip would go relatively quickly, but Saturn to Mars (which, interestingly enough, looks like it might be in about the right place, orbit-wise, to be on the way to Earth) is going to be a long haul.
And, since this is Macross, what do those themes I mentioned in the episode sound like? I mean, I've already got this mental 'image' of Jialan as having Amy Lee's voice and Bon Jovi's style, but...
Ja, -n
(Inspired by the activity of others!)
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[M Fnord]

---

Other things... well, I'd like to figure out the SDF-1's actual itinerary, along with attendant delta-v needs. Departure, arrival, etc. I've done some checking using online calculator thingies, and Neptune and Saturn look like they're going to be close enough that the trip would go relatively quickly, but Saturn to Mars (which, interestingly enough, looks like it might be in about the right place, orbit-wise, to be on the way to Earth) is going to be a long haul.

---

Goddammit, now you've got me thinking about this...
Okay, running the quick n' dirty numbers on a Hohmann transfer orbit from Neptune to Earth, it'll take about 16 km/s of delta-v to put the Macross into a minimum-energy return, with an expected flight time of 31 years.
*cue anguished howls from the crew*
Right. The Hohmann orbit is right out. These people would like to get home before their families die of old age. So, we're going to have to go with continuous thrust. Doing it in stages, a 1g burn for half the trip then a turnaround and 1g decelleration for the other half could get Macross home in a matter of less than a month (plus time to grab fuel from Saturn, take on/offload people at Mars, etc.). Problem is, this would require either insane amounts of remass or some sort of ET super efficient we-laugh-at-fuel-requirements handwavium drive to work.
Hell, considering that Macross is the size of a medium asteroid and weighs about the same, I'd seriously consider there being some sort of handwavium drive or something to reduce the ship's overall inertial mass to something the human-built engines can handle.---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Valles]

---

Hell, considering that Macross is the size of a medium asteroid and weighs about the same, I'd seriously consider there being some sort of handwavium drive or something to reduce the ship's overall inertial mass to something the human-built engines can handle.

---

We're already dealing with at least three pieces of handwavium, and I hope we can solve this one with a slightly smaller hammer.
All of the following is, as usual, referenced from the ever-useful Atomic Rocket Project.
Referencing my preferred sketches, I'd guesstimate the Macross' main engines at slightly less than a square kilometer across... rough length 9km, average beam 2.5km, average draft... 1100m or so. 24,750,000,000 m^3, give or take, or slightly under two and a half billion displacement tons. Figure fifty percent of that to account for the main gun, engines, and other neccessary machinery - and, for the Macross herself rather than her Zentradi cousins, probably crew spaces also.
Empty mass is going to vary radically depending on what we say about the materials technology that went into her. My guess would be either steel or some sort of carbon composite - both of which are at least fairly strong and can be fabricated from common materials, and are hence cheap.
Mass ratio... probably a lot higher than most space opera considers and a lot lower than is really plausible. ^_^; For steel construction, 1.5 to 2 would probably be about the maximum - composite, I wouldn't have a clue.
Unfortunately, none of the posted drives seem to match the characteristics of what we're dealing with. Fortunately, I had always been thinking that the Macross would be lifting off under some kind of antigravity effect - otherwise, think about the consequences of her thruster wash on Tinian, or the entire Pacific basin, for that matter - so we don't have to limit ourselves to T:W>1... Hm. On second thought, perhaps a version of a solid core antimatter drive where the reaction mass is heated by... *makes a 'fill in the blank' hand motion* some kind of electrical arc, or something.
And anyway, I actually don't want a particularly quick trip - a year or two would be ideal, but there's considerable fudge factor in both directions.
The ARMOR platforms? Well, as noted, they're about five billion cubic meters, or 500,000,000 displacement tons, have aluminum and titanium construction, and I'd put their mass ratio at about two. Skywatch's older, smaller ships use a somewhat scaled-up version of what that page calls a Minimag-Orion, but it requires frequent maintenance, has a distinctly limited maximum operation period (after which you have to shut it off or melt your drive components and probably backfire one of your charges into the magazine and blow yourself to kingdom come), and is very expensive to operate.
Zentradi ships get away with a relatively low mass ratio because, well, even in a worst case scenario, they can always use carefully planned folds and local gravity to control their velocity. Also, their fleet trains include tanker and processor ships - also fold-equipped, of course - who can land on some otherwise unoccupied outer system body and shovel up spare remass 'till the cows come home.
I'm passing out as I type, so I'm going to wrap this up for the night.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[M Fnord]

---

All of the following is, as usual, referenced from the ever-useful Atomic Rocket Project.

---

Ah yes, the source of all knowledge for the wannabe rocket scientist. ^_^
Using Nyrath's transit nomogram, I decided to lay in the Macross, just to see how badly off the poor thing was.
Here's the results. Since your guesstimate of Macross' dry mass went off the charts, I handwaved that a combination of Alien Alloys and Fancy 21st Century Composites kept the total mass down (!) to 1000 kilotons. That said, using the best real-world option for the drive, the mighty IC Fusion torch, nets us a grand acceleration total of about... just slightly more than a hundredth of a G. And, just to be funny, the total delta-v needed for it to get back from the misfold (a transit time that completely broke the nomogram) ranges around 1.25Mm/s. Ouch.
Now, that's pretty pathetic for an alien gunboat that's racked up its share of Zent cruisers. So, I decided to give the Macross an edge with "quantum tap" thruster systems that produce 2 billion Newtons of thrust, giving the ship the grand and stately total possible acceleration of 2m/s^2. Not enough to lift off from Earth, but enough to return from Neptune in the somewhat reasonable time of 4.75 weeks using a totally unreasonable delta-v of 6Mm/s.
Then, just for the hell of it I decided to max out the scale and see what a total thrust of 100 billion Newtons got us. At max thrust, that could lift off from Tinian at 10G, and make the voyage home from Neptune in under a week. Of course, the delta-v requirements are up in the 40Mm/s range, but...
And frankly, let's not get started on mass fractions. Running the numbers on the delta-v nomogram get me things like .1 or worse mass ratio numbers. That's just not gonna work. @_@
Just going through the numbers, one thing's perfectly clear; we're going to have to use antigrav or Super-Handwavium to reduce the ship's overall mass, otherwise the Macross is going to be a very large lawn ornament sitting on Tinian for the rest of eternity.---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Rieverre]

Manfred Korbinian. A war hero and fighter ace. A man of bravery. A legend, even in his own time.
But now, the man known as the Baron will come to face perhaps the greatest challenge he's ever come across, and that's _including_ homicidal alien aces that seem to be popping out of the woodwork to gun for him.
/*note: this happens a bit after the misfold and when the city is a somewhat 'stable' social environment*/
***
The resounding thuds broke the tenous grasp on sleep that Estavan had struggled so hard to attain for the better part of two hours.
His eyes went to the chrono sitting innocently on his desk at the other end of the room, the numbers on its face taunting him with their bright red color ... among other things.
He'd never had relationship issues before, quite possibly because he'd never really been in what could be considered a 'serious' relationship. Nor had he been particularly inclined to pursue one. Now, however, whatever gods were watching had obviously decided he'd had it too easy. What with the obvious triviality of 'only' having to risk his life in the defense of an entire city's worth of people as a matter of course in his still relatively new line of work.
And he was losing sleep over the whole thing. Damnit, he _liked_ his sleep. It was one of his favorite past-times nowadays.
With obvious frustration coloring his movements, they young pilot rose from the bed, pulled on a t-shirt, nearly tripped over the boots he'd forgotten he'd just shucked at the foot of the bed earlier that night (or was it morning?) and yanked the door open.
"What ...?!" he'd been intending to give whoever it was a piece of his mind. His first leave in more than a month of active duty, interspaced with the occasional day of 'just' running simulations, and he wasn't even allowed to get in a measly six hours of sleep!
His insomnia aside, that is.
He was _not_ prepared to suddenly be face to face with a frazzled looking Manfred Korbinian.
"Kleiner Bruder! You've gotta hide me!" the look of ... was that panic? ... on the usually confident Lieutenant-Colonel's face would have been comical, if it weren't so damn late.
Then Manfred's entire body seemed to go rigid, and Estavan would later swear he'd seen his CO's ears *twitch* before his face blanched.
The Austrian man lunged past the startled Mexican, casting a quick look around the room and immediately diving ... under the bed. How he'd managed to cram himself into the exceedingly tight space without any subsequent injury would give physicists and physicians headaches for years to come. Well, if any would ever be informed of the event.
Estavan stood, dumbfounded, before he heard someone ... or rather, a group of someones, approaching along the corridor. At speed.
He turned. He blinked.
"He's got to be around here somewhere!"
"Oh, my lord Baron, I'm so distraught. Will you comfort me?"
"Sir? Where are you? I just wanted to get your autograph!"
***
Fangirls. Lots and lots of fangirls.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

Er... *embarrased cough*
Okay, I fucked up. I was misunderstanding the meaning of the term 'displacement ton'... Unfortunately, not in a direction that would help us. (scarfing density figures from here suggests a mass of at least seventeen billion (17*10^9) tons...)
Hm. We've been assuming that the Macross came out at rest relative to Neptune, right? Or orbit thereof. And, given that the Zentradi didn't come out of fold in a solar escape trajectory, the drives obviously have the ability to do that or something similar - I'm thinking that the 'flashes' that are associated with them coming out are the difference in energy between destination and arrival getting radiated out along the electromagnetic spectrum.
Possibilities: 1.) the Macross did indeed match velocities with Neptune, in which case we need either an unpleasant amount of time or an absurd amount of delta-v.
2.) the Macross didn't change her vectors or speeds at all, in which case things get very interesting from the mathmatics perspective. OTOH, since that probably means that pretty much all of the rest of the trip is spent in transit rather than in the local system of someplace interesting, it makes for boring scenery.
3.) as 1, except the fold drive itself is fine - but its power feeds have gone kablooey, because being that deep in Earth's gravity well meant that they had to transfer more energy than even Maker tech could stand. Now, they can be replaced, but only with Terran-made materials, which means that going home will have to be done in stages, so as to keep differentials low enough for those lesser cables to handle. Has the advantage of taking us on a grand tour of the solar system. ^_^
BTW, I'm remembering our standing handwavium as: Quantum power cores; fold drives; SIF systems, and limited antigravity. Because lifting a medium-sized asteroid into orbit is no fun if you vaporize the inhabited island it's sitting on. Or the entire Northern Marianas, for that matter.
Hmm. Depending on how the SIF works, we may be able to allow it the ability of weight neutralization, but I'd want a lot more thought on the matter, first.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[M Fnord]

---

(scarfing density figures from here suggests a mass of at least seventeen billion (17*10^9) tons...)

---

Yeeeaaah, that's not gonna fly. 17Mtons is way beyond the capability of any realistic reaction drive to lift in a 1G field. Just not going to happen. We've finally hit the Plausibility Wall.
I can think of two ways to get around it off the top of my head. The first sacrifices faithfulness to the original version in favor of plausibility: we don't let the Macross land on Tinian, or anywhere else. The ship makes a stable parking orbit, we find it, yadda yadda. This would require some serious revision to the story, but it would allow us to tack fusion rockets or whatever onto the SDF-1 and fly it around without worrying about how it's going to get off the ground.
The second shaves off plausibility in favor of holding close to the original story. Beefing up the antigravity systems gives us the right type of handwavium to allow the Macross to lift from Tinian and would work as our inertial mass-cancel device. The core problem with this is then we're stuck with a bunch of "if X, then Y" questions that need to be answered in terms of how handy the antigravity is (like, if antigrav works well enough for liftoff, why need reaction-based thrusters to begin with?)
Re: The grand tour, I don't think we need to justify that as a technical issue. It would work better as an in-story thing; once the Macross realizes that they're the primary target of the Zentraedi assault, they'll want to delay their return as much as possible, try to pick off the enemy and/or give Earth more time to prepare for another attack.---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[classicdrogn]

YOu need conventional drives despite antigrav, because the best antigrav can do is hold stable relative to the local well, rather than climb out of it - you can float, or you can go down, but for up you have to add an impulse with some kind of normal thruster.
Works?
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[M Fnord]

---

YOu need conventional drives despite antigrav, because the best antigrav can do is hold stable relative to the local well, rather than climb out of it - you can float, or you can go down, but for up you have to add an impulse with some kind of normal thruster.

---

The would work. My suggestion would be that the Zentraedi ships & original factory-fresh Macross could use the antigravity feild for propulsion, giving them more maneuverability and greater total acceleration. (IIRC we don't see much in the way of visible engine spaces on the Zent cruisers, yes/no?) The human rebuilt Macross, OTOH, can't use the antigrav for much more than basic mass-cancelling and interior gravity - the scientists working on the black box figured that much out, but can't seem to shape the propulsion fields properly, so they ended up adding thruster spaces to a ship that, if rebuilt properly by the original designers, doesn't really need them.---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Valles]

---

The would work. My suggestion would be that the Zentraedi ships & original factory-fresh Macross could use the antigravity feild for propulsion, giving them more maneuverability and greater total acceleration. (IIRC we don't see much in the way of visible engine spaces on the Zent cruisers, yes/no?) The human rebuilt Macross, OTOH, can't use the antigrav for much more than basic mass-cancelling and interior gravity - the scientists working on the black box figured that much out, but can't seem to shape the propulsion fields properly, so they ended up adding thruster spaces to a ship that, if rebuilt properly by the original designers, doesn't really need them.

---

Hmm. Thoughts this puts in my head: The original Zentradi capital ships definitely mounted some sort of reaction thrusters - they were buried in those scalloped structures they always had at the stern, and/or clearly visible on the Meltran ships. So, there's clearly a reason for ships to mount distinct engines... Or, hmm. I'd always thought that, even without the Armor platforms, the Macross had picked up a noticable amount of mass during her refit - her engine pods might be part of that.
Something I remember from my reading on physics (for an Astronomy class, ironically) is that forces act through the transfer of, um, empherial? Transient? Short-lived? particles called bosons, which are created at one end of an interaction, then move through space to the other end, where they're absorbed/destroyed. Photons are definitely the most famous member of this class of particle, but they also include a lot of other, wierder, things, most notably the not-yet-observed graviton.
Logically, shouldn't something that can affect one class of boson be able to affect others? What would the implications of that be?
And just what is inertia, anyway? My knowledge of physics doesn't go that far... if it also works through boson interactions then we're all well and good, but otherwise...
The boson-canceller and the SIF might be the same device, since we never really defined the latter beyond what we needed it to do. If the former doesn't quite do all that we need it to do, I seem to remember hearing somewhere about a real-world theory that suggested ways to use active energy fields to increase the strength of armor, which, if true, would be helpful, particularly in combination.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[M Fnord]

You're gonna love this one... since we're planning to have the Macross misfold out to Neptune and then make its way back through the solar system, having battles in picturesque locations, etc., I ran an orrery to see what the solar system looked like at the beginning of Space War One (around late August, 2051):

>_< As you can see, the universe conspires against us. Now I understand why rubber science is all the rage.
Opinions, gentlemen?---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Valles]

---

Opinions, gentlemen?

---

A five, six year delay wouldn't make all that much of an alteration to our future history, but checking the mid-late 2050s at the same site will show a much more useful configuration. As long as the brachistome requirements for the Neptune-Saturn, Saturn-Jupiter, and Jupiter-Mars legs are all less than a straight shot to Earth, we have a perfect justification - they're stopping off to refill their reaction mass reseves, whether by gathering raw water out of the wilderness or cleaning out the reserves Mars Base has on hand.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[M Fnord]

2057 seems to give us a decent system configuration for that sort of trip.---
Mr. Fnord, interdimensional man of mystery.
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Valles]

What if we have Kyllikki defect without being micronized? Besides the amusement-slash-ecchi fanart value in giving Katsuro a thirty-foot girlfriend, it'll give us a chance to bring home the implications of Zentradi size in human terms, which I really can't remember the original series ever doing much.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[drakensis]

Reminds me a bit of the M7 movie where whatshisname the rock star meens max& mirya's older musican daughter - the one who's zentreadi sized.
As an alternative, how about mixing in the DYRL version of that romance?
Katsuro and Kyllikki fight a bigass space duel and wind up fighting each other to a standstill inside a zentreadi ship. After the rescue crews pry Kyllikki out of her suit she sneaks Katsuro away in her pocket and gets to know him. Later, she manages to get Katsuro reverse-micronised (macronised?) and they both defect together to rejoin the SDF-1.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[Valles]

A note, first: I spent a good chunk of today on the road, and did a lot of thinking about this project.
'Macross City', I think, would be done by adding micron-scale internal partitions to what's left of the original crew barracks, which had identical floorplans on two adjacent decks. Since the barracks blocks in question are at the very core of the hull, it's decided that the risk of pressure-loss this deep is minimal and there's little reason not to cut away most of the decking in between, leaving balconies and flying bridges three stories up in a six-story space. Bringing the original plumbing system back into service lets it act as central water and sewage for the apartment blocks, which put apartments along the walls of the original bunkrooms and turn the central area into communal courtyards, while the old corridors between those blocks get a mix of more apartments and what civilian businesses can manage to operate under the SDF-1's system of rationing and martial law.
A lot of the transients who were on Tinian that day end up getting drafted and trained into whatever was needed at the time, but most of Tinian's permanent population was directly or indirectly associated with the rebuilding of the Macross, and hence has a massively disproportionate number of people skilled at shipbuilding, heavy industry, etc, etc - in other words, exactly the skills needed to set up your own armarments industry.
Erm. I also had a thought about how, while I'm still determined to replace the canon Super on the grounds that it's a stupid execution of a good concept, there very well might have been plans for less extensive FAST packs in existence before the war started. So, my timeline for the development of these booster packs is:
Pre-war: Back-and-thigh packs modeled after the canon Super set and the VF-5k's unit, with a space use set, a general atmospheric weapons pack (with quantum power and air for remass, the VF-1's atmospheric range is literally limited only by how long the pilot can stand to be in the cockpit, rendering the 'fuel' part of FAST moot), an ECM unit and maybe an orbital booster set in stock and ready for use.
Early-war: Engineers aboard the Macross design the Assault and Support single-mode booster armor sets to let Valkyries step into some of the combat roles being filled by the SDF-1's strictly limited number of Desdroids.
Late-war: Some clever person comes up with the idea of the Super set, giving a Valkyrie extended endurance along with most of the firepower and armor of an Assault set without removing the transformation ability. The Super and its quickly-designed complement, the Strike, provide Skywatch with a critical edge in individual unit strength in the last stages of the conflict.
Post-war: The more Earth-focused issues of the Reconstruction era cause the adaptation of the Super for atmospheric use, creating the Ultra set.

---

Katsuro and Kyllikki fight a bigass space duel and wind up fighting each other to a standstill inside a zentreadi ship. After the rescue crews pry Kyllikki out of her suit she sneaks Katsuro away in her pocket and gets to know him. Later, she manages to get Katsuro reverse-micronised (macronised?) and they both defect together to rejoin the SDF-1.

---

I've seen neither of the mentioned films, actually. ^_^;
The problems I see with the scenario you described are two: first, sort of the point of having a major character spend a large amount of time macronised is that the original series never really brought home the difference in scale, for me - 'most every time I remember seeing a micron and a macron in the same shot, it was from a distant view, making the micron seem itty-bitty rather than the macron bigger.
The other is that, at that point in their relationship, she's more likely to step on him than rescue him - they've only been shooting at each other, never even exchanging a word.
OTOH, if he bails out of his fighter and runs off to hide, then we can have them exchanging insults - and, eventually, actual discussion - while she chases him around the echoey maze formed by the cruiser's mostly-empty supply storage.
Hmm. If he gets away, then they have another couple of mostly-inconclusive encounters, then that might make her mad enough to really justify her getting herself micronised for an informational infiltration mission.
Er, thought/possibility - it'd make sense, to me, for the last Maker or the first Zentradi commanders to institute a special corps of Zentradi to deal with 'cultural contamination' problems - infiltration and internal affairs - and after Joukahainen and Louhi have both failed, it'd make sense for Ukko to assign one of these bully-boys to command of the terran mission. So they set up a factfinding effort, but then Kyllikki bullies her way into the slot...
And meets Katsuro, cue knife duel, screaming match, hot make-out session and Really Impulsive Life Choice, in that order.
She spends several episodes on the SDF-1, learning and thinking about her options, then goes back, makes her report... and starts laying the groundwork to defect openly and have the entire Meltran force follow her. With the full knowledge and support of the SDF-1's intelligence people, and a terran backup team that's been snuck in to help.
And when she does, and Ukko's specialist orders them strung up by their toenails, Joukahainen and his people - who have spent, by this point, years chasing the SDF-1 and listening to its civilian broadcasts, including, in more recent months, the 'Fortress Rose', who does her shows in Zentradese - tell him to do something anatomically impossible with himself and follow.
Cue endgame.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Valles]

Dear Mom,
I've only got a minute or two, so this is gonna have to be short.
I had to break my promise to you, but I can't think of anything else I could have done and stayed a man. When the aliens started landing at Tinian, Baron put out a call for any pilot that wasn't already doing something else important to get to one end of the military field; turns out that, besides the extra squadrons that got moved in to guard the launch, the EDTO had stockpiled a lot of fighters on the island.
He wanted volunteers to fly them, to help protect the island while the Macross took the military squadrons up to attack the mothership.
I couldn't say no.
Most of us... didn't make it long enough to land again. I made ace, but I can't help remembering what Dad said, about knowing that the enemy were guys just like him. I don't know what these aliens are like, but I wish it hadn't been this way.
The Macross's coming back; the word is that it's gonna fold away, to try and support ARMOR-3, and since this is the first try they're going to do it as close to their test runs as possible.
Nobody knows what that'll do to Tinian.
Just in case... I hope I've made you proud. I love you.
-Estevan
*****
COMMERCIAL BREAK
*****
OPENING CREDITS
Macross SEED - Episode 2: Fall to Singularity
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

[Rieverre]

---

He wanted volunteers to fly them, to help protect the island while the Macross took the military squadrons up to attack the mothership.

---

So, kinda like Independence Day, just without the suckage. Coolness.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[classicdrogn]

Yeah, that letter about comprises what you'd have left of Independence Day if you got rid of everything that sucked.
- CDThat which does not kill us... has made its last mistake.
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
" It's crazy to try to spell out all the mega-nooks and hyper-crannies of a Borg contrivance." - Doug Drexler
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Valles]

*jaw drops*
Y'know, until you two mentioned it, I hadn't even thought of that parallel?
Nevermind that, though - what do you think about the new Macross City? Or the FAST pack thing? Or, most especially, Katsu and Kyllikki?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."