[RFC] Being You is Deculture

[Black Aeronaut]

If nothing else, it will probably give me ideas for SHENANIGANS.

[Bob Schroeck]

Oh, you have to see Hot Shots.

You do indeed.

[ECSNorway]

I am tempted to suggest Wraith Squadron from the "X-Wing" novels as a mecha-commando group. There's almost got to be at least some people trained for that kind of thing.

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh-ho!  Here's an idea!

Make Wolf Squadron be the squadron of SV-52's that shows up.  After all, in Battlecry, it's stated that Roy flew against Jack many times.  (It's also stated that he's also flown with Jack many times as well, but Jack was originally a mercenary in the game.)  Or, hell, say that he WAS a merc, fought on both sides for a bit, and then finally settled on the Anti-UN.

Besides, I bet it would be kinda fitting that the Harmony Gold characters be the Anti-UN folks.  

.....  You know, I gotta come up with a better name than 'Anti-UN'.  That's kinda childish.

How does 'Federal Alliance' sound?  As a union, they'll operate like a federation, but internally it operates more like how the the USA's Founding Fathers originally envisioned American government - with as small of an impact on states' rights as possible.  In this case, the legislature is more for hammering out how commerce is conducted between the nations, and each country is responsible for supplying its own military forces, but there would be a cooperative defense accord between them all.

Let's see, callsigns...

Jack Archer, 'Old Fart' because he was already a seasoned vet when he joined up.
Helena Chase, 'Red' both for her hair and her rather fiery temperament.
Hiro Ishi 'Pounder' because he was a destroid jockey beforehand.
Izzy Randall 'Lizzy' because it's a play on her first name and on her last (Randall Boggs - chameleon monster).

Wolf Squadron will consist of four wings with each of the above commanding their own wing, and Helena will be the squadron commander.

Thoughts?

[robkelk]

I always thought "anti-UN forces" was a descriptive term, not a force name - something to call whoever the UN was fighting against that day.

It wouldn't include any of the veto powers (because if any of them didn't want the UN to become a world government, they would have vetoed it) or their closest allies, but the armed forces of any other country who didn't want to surrender sovereignty would be "anti-UN" whether they're working together or not.

[Rajvik]

It wouldn't include any of the veto powers (because if any of them didn't want the UN to become a world government, they would have vetoed it) or their closest allies, but the armed forces of any other country who didn't want to surrender sovereignty would be "anti-UN" whether they're working together or not.

Rob I'm going to politely disagree as the majority of flyover country Would give the big middle finger to any idea of subjugating our government to the UN. This would cause the US to have another Civil War and honestly i wouldn't bet which way it would go unless the rest of the UN nations pitched in to beat those who didn't want their rule.

That said, this is BOa's story and I think he should write it as he pleases, though I do ask for a seat as a pilot in the squadron.

[classicdrogn]

Sounds like a decent enough solution to me, though the anti-Unificationists might just be a League or even a small-A alliance. They did seem to have a logo, that bird-foot shaped four-arrows-pointing-outward thing, but that couls easily have just been a unit insignia for D. D. and Nora's group.

Incidentally, while double checking their names just now I discovered that D.D. apparently has the nickname "Daisy" among friends. An odd enough quirk that only finding that now makes me skeptical of Some Guy On The Internet saying it, but it's not that unbelievable either. I mean, I gave the squadron leader in my Mekton dungeon crawl "Butterfly" for a call sign just now...

Since I'm unlikely to post that, I'll list the rest as well, since you're currently filling out unit rosters. He's "Lt. Fairbanks Keene," and after him Queenie, Jackrabbit, Hammer, and Goblin have the highest gunnery scores compared to Boostnik, Dodo, Woofer, and Screamer. Boostnik is a speed-freak who can't believe he lost to MC's crazy little power not-armored Maneuver Frame in his space fighter, Queenie is trying to live down having been a snooty rich brat, Woofer is crazy about dogs (Much to the delight of MC's Yorkshire, who was approved to bring aboard for therapy and morale purposes since she has zero-g pet school training and a life support cube like Nimitz's in the early Honor Harrington novels,) and Screamer is mousy and shy anywhere except in combat, where she can and has terrorized Marines twice her body mass and has the highest hand-to-hand scores both in and out of the cockpit. The others I haven't developed even that much. My MC is still just called Rookie as of the latest installment, having been rushed onto the ship so it could launch only halfway through basic training due to having already had a High-Performance Flight certification to an Upright Configuration Special Vehicle license before enlistment.

edit: We know Canada didn't join the Unity Government intact since the Ottowa region is specifically not a member and hence free to offer the Macross City civilians a haven in canon, and I agree that it would be a very contentious issue in the US as well, so we probably did break up over it. Washington possibly getting vaped by the ASS-1's descent and/or nuked in the Unification War may or may not have helped that along.

[Black Aeronaut]

I always thought "anti-UN forces" was a descriptive term, not a force name - something to call whoever the UN was fighting against that day.

It wouldn't include any of the veto powers (because if any of them didn't want the UN to become a world government, they would have vetoed it) or their closest allies, but the armed forces of any other country who didn't want to surrender sovereignty would be "anti-UN" whether they're working together or not.

One of the interesting bits of Macross lore that I read somewhere basically describes it as a very vocal minority that, once it appeared they would be outvoted on the referendum, marched en masse straight over to a dining hall or some such, and with a minimum of politicking resolved to ally with each other and stand in opposition to the UN.

So there pretty much was the beginnings of a loose sort of government.  I'm just taking that to its ultimate logical conclusion.

Also, I'd imagine that there would have been a LONG series of war crimes tribunals, because some seriously heinous shit went down - not the least of which was the destruction of the unarmed UN transport coming from Mars and it's loss with all hands.  (Not that the UN wasn't guilty of a few line items, but the Anti-UN coalition had a thing for going after soft targets since they were the underdogs.)

It wouldn't include any of the veto powers (because if any of them didn't want the UN to become a world government, they would have vetoed it) or their closest allies, but the armed forces of any other country who didn't want to surrender sovereignty would be "anti-UN" whether they're working together or not.

Rob I'm going to politely disagree as the majority of flyover country Would give the big middle finger to any idea of subjugating our government to the UN. This would cause the US to have another Civil War and honestly i wouldn't bet which way it would go unless the rest of the UN nations pitched in to beat those who didn't want their rule.

That said, this is BOa's story and I think he should write it as he pleases, though I do ask for a seat as a pilot in the squadron.

Easy Raj.  I asked for ideas and opinions.

Anyhow, I would imagine that the very real threat of invaders from the stars would provide something of a galvanizing thought for many Americans and quite drastically change the political climate.  The likes of Alex Jones would still have his followers, and he would undoubtedly proclaim the entire thing to be a sham, but this would be the point where the suspension of disbelief is broken for a lot of people.  They do, after all, have a hulk of an alien warship that anyone can go and see for themselves just how 'fake' it is.

And I would hope that the idea of 'United We Stand' would prevail over 'THEY'RE GONNA RAPE US ALL!!!'

Sounds like a decent enough solution to me, though the anti-Unificationists might just be a League or even a small-A alliance. They did seem to have a logo, that bird-foot shaped four-arrows-pointing-outward thing, but that couls easily have just been a unit insignia for D. D. and Nora's group.

Maybe. I'll have to take a closer look myself - typically, unit markings are usually relegated to the tail and only the tail.

Incidentally, while double checking their names just now I discovered that D.D. apparently has the nickname "Daisy" among friends. An odd enough quirk that only finding that now makes me skeptical of Some Guy On The Internet saying it, but it's not that unbelievable either. I mean, I gave the squadron leader in my Mekton dungeon crawl "Butterfly" for a call sign just now...

Heh-heh-heh. There is no escaping the embarrassing callsign...

Since I'm unlikely to post that, I'll list the rest as well, since you're currently filling out unit rosters. He's "Lt. Fairbanks Keene," and after him Queenie, Jackrabbit, Hammer, and Goblin have the highest gunnery scores compared to Boostnik, Dodo, Woofer, and Screamer. Boostnik is a speed-freak who can't believe he lost to MC's crazy little power not-armored Maneuver Frame in his space fighter, Queenie is trying to live down having been a snooty rich brat, Woofer is crazy about dogs (Much to the delight of MC's Yorkshire, who was approved to bring aboard for therapy and morale purposes since she has zero-g pet school training and a life support cube like Nimitz's in the early Honor Harrington novels,) and Screamer is mousy and shy anywhere except in combat, where she can and has terrorized Marines twice her body mass and has the highest hand-to-hand scores both in and out of the cockpit. The others I haven't developed even that much. My MC is still just called Rookie as of the latest installment, having been rushed onto the ship so it could launch only halfway through basic training due to having already had a High-Performance Flight certification to an Upright Configuration Special Vehicle license before enlistment.

Thanks for all that. With all this, I shouldn't have TOO much trouble filling out the squadrons... Just trouble finding time to do it.

edit: We know Canada didn't join the Unity Government intact since the Ottowa region is specifically not a member and hence free to offer the Macross City civilians a haven in canon, and I agree that it would be a very contentious issue in the US as well, so we probably did break up over it. Washington possibly getting vaped by the ASS-1's descent and/or nuked in the Unification War may or may not have helped that along.

Hmmm.... I could see part of Japan's southern islands suffering terribly. Or Malaysia. But DC? I'd be more inclined to think that if anything happened to DC, then it was something to do with the war.

And also, that something wouldn't happen until the USA picked a side. (Unless of course it was an act of terrorism to force the USA one way or the other...)

[classicdrogn]

Well, checking Booby Trap just now, it does only show one city getting hit by the shockwave as the ASS-1 passed overhead rather than the extended aerobraking that I remembered, and that was four generic skyscrapers rather than some huge metropolis or a distinctive skyline so probably not anywhere that critical on the world level either. The impact certainly hit with a fireball like an atomic bomb, and more importantly blasted a crater out of South Ataria Island two or three times the length of the ship that would have been about 1/2 to 1/3 in the water to generate a tsunami shockwave, but that would still only affect the Pacific Rim with East Asia, the Phillipines, and maybe northern Australia, the Hawaiian islands, the Pacific Northwest, and Mexico getting weaker hits with the amount of ocean they'd have to cross dissipating energy first, probably just some mondo curl for the surfers in Central and South America. How that would compare with the event when the island and a big chunk of ocean were folded out is open to question.

[classicdrogn]

Thanks for all that. With all this, I shouldn't have TOO much trouble filling out the squadrons... Just trouble finding time to do it.

T'ain't no thang. Actually, do you have any suggestions back for my MC's callsign? Here's the scene:

"Hey Butterfly, we've got these guys contained, right?"

"Pretty much, but stay alert. Woofer already had one get out of the 'inescapable' capture rounds."

"Cover me for a minute to go E.V.A.?"

"E.V.A.? Why would you even... STAY IN THAT COCKPIT! What the hell are you playing at, Rookie?!"

"I want a laser sword, boss, even if I have to lash it to the side of my Dryad with rope. Well, I have the rope and there's a perfectly good laser sword in that Medusa's detached arm, all I have to do is keep the accel down on the way home."

"... you are the craziest bitch I have ever seen, and that's including my ex-wives. All right, M.O.M. agrees it's worth a try, so you're cleared for E.V.A. you lunatic."

"Acknowledged, Butterfly, depressurizing cockpit and matching velocity to prepare for extravehicular activity. Exiting the fighter in six-oh seconds."

"No risks, if you can't get it secured like an admiral's asshole or any of the tangoes so much as twitch you abort and get back on board. And just so you know, if you pull this stunt off we'll be calling you 'Jedi.'"

No they won't, Jedi is too cool. I don't have any better ideas at the moment, though... and traditionally, you don't get to pick your own callsign anyway A few other points of explanation:

* 'Medusa' is the reporting name of an alien unit with beam swords. Humans don't have energy weapons yet.
* the 'Dryad' is a pumpkin-seed-like fighter that can have a limb kit attached and transform into a humanoid mode, or just turn into the torso on its own for better agility (or in gravity, VTOL operation) at reduced speed due to how the thrusters and attitude control rockets are rearranged.
* M.O.M. is the Mecha Operations Manager, basically Misa's job on the SDF-1. Generally you don't do anything in the mecha/fighter wings without permission from M.O.M.
* the capture rounds... heh heh. In Butterfly's words at the briefing before they launched: "Sentinel's fighter wing has had their Hellfire cannons modified to accept a new type of specialty ammunition codenamed 'Happy Tentacle.' The round is similar overall to the standard self-forging explosive used by PDF and SF mecha, but the charge is much smaller and the shell is made of fullerine-laced polymer that shreds into thousands of long strands when it hits and then coils tightly around anything nearby, binding limbs and fouling thrusters and weapons like a fish caught in a net." They have to be basically handmade at this point so each fighter only gets five rounds, but they're so starved for intel right now the expense is seen as justified, and the guns have three magazines selectable at the flip of a switch, for HTs, standard ammo, and the signature Hellfire rounds, which burst into a 50m cloud of thermite-napalm-hatred to eat enemy armor and generally prove that no matter how much something is already burning it could explode more and be more on fire. It's so valatile that the gun doesn't actually have a magizine for them, instead they invented a programmable-matter fabricator to make each one just before it's fired because they're too dangerous to store intact. Adapting that system to the Happy Tentacle rounds is a work in progress.
* MC does in fact have actually have psychic abilities, though not particularly Jedi-like aside from TK and a danger sense that doubles as a semi-reliable bullet time dodge. Levitation, kage-bunshin expy clones, and telepathy otherwise. She hasn't made a lot of noise about them but they're not a secret, the UC Berkley Electro-Psychic Phenomena lab having made considerable advances in studying such abilities recently, to the point of a telepathic piloting interface being plausibly within reach for a prototype for operational trials within a month or two.

[Black Aeronaut]

Heh. Screw-Loose. Because even if it is a laser sword and therefore cool as hell, you gotta have a few screws loose. Inspired by a character from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

[classicdrogn]

Groovy. I asked for suggestions in a couple other places too, but I can dig it. MC is also a tech geek (and the designer of the unit they're flying by way of time hax, though not on MC's part in that case unless it's a "Turns out, I did it to myself" situation down the road - I planned to leave it unexplained, mainly because I hate chatty ROBs) so it fits that way too.

Fake edit: No bites on those, though with time zones and schedules there may yet be a reply or two. Either way, Screwloose is a strong contender.

[Black Aeronaut]

Wooo.  Just wrote the most I've written for this in WEEKS.  A little over 500 words in a sitting. Not much, but still.

It'll be slow for the time being, but with any luck I may have something by Christmas or maybe after New Year's.

We'll see soon.

[classicdrogn]

Reading some Ranma fics the past couple days, it prompted me to give you a gentle poke to see if you'd been making any progress here. Grandma(ster) Lynn is a character I still very much want to see.

[Black Aeronaut]

I've got about 4,500 words for the next chapter so far, but I need to go through it carefully to make sure there aren't any holes that need to be filled in, or areas where I should do more showing rather than telling.

I also intend to introduce our friends from Canada.

It's been taking me a while because I've had so much on my mind lately. It's hard to find time where I can just let my mind wander the way I need to in order to work this out. And on top of it all, my family is going to be visiting for Christmas. Urgh.

[classicdrogn]

No pressure, and of course you need to take care of yourself IRL first. Just trying to help keep the enthusiasm flowing

[Black Aeronaut]

I get so little time to work on this, and my brain is always kept occupied by other things.

Fortunately, I was able to do a bit of digging and found info and pictures on the SV-52, so I don't have to wing it entirely.
http://www.macrossnewhorizon.org/mediawi...2_Eagle_II

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh, and file this one under "Songs Minmei Would Sing": Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari (English: The Story You Don't Know) by Supercell.

Romanji and English-translated lyrics are in the video.

[classicdrogn]

Well, the pictures are of the race-custom Oryol, which has those big spoofer-fingers on the wingtips (IC, they're specifically meant to fool other pilots who look at them to try to see what aerodynamic inputs are being fed in) that are the only real externally visible difference from the SV-51, as even the site you linked mentions. Since you are operating in the original series timeline, just watching some Macross Zero clips on uPotato and possibly modifying the description to have normal fusion thruster exhaust instead of the glowing green trails that are apparently Macross visual shorthand for "This is an enemy unit!" should suffice.

Or play it in Macross 30 if you have a copy and a PS3 It's actually a pretty good unit, though having the FAST packs installed actually makes it less effective due to the way the weapons are switched, and getting the pack in the first place is a horrific minigame ordeal on one of the hardest steeplechase courses in the game. I'd offer to make recordings or screen shots from mine, but I don't have a capture card (or a computer with a graphics card new enough let alone the processor to run PCSX3) and there's apparently no onboard way to do so. Sadly, as much fun as the game is I can't recommend buying even the current end-of-life prices for a console and a probably more expensive copy of a relatively rare, long out of print, import game that was somewhat obscure even in Japan, just as research for a fanfic. Besides, it doesn't even have the VF-17 (just the Nightmare Minus grunt unit with the longer nose,) VF-4, or any of the enemy designs from Macross 7.

[ECSNorway]

Besides, it doesn't even have the VF-17 (just the Nightmare Minus grunt unit with the longer nose,) VF-4, or any of the enemy designs from Macross 7.

Are you referring to the VF-171 here? Because that's a favorite of mine.

[classicdrogn]

I am, yes. Supposedly it's tuned up to equal the performance of the VF-19 and the enemies in F are just that much better that it dies like popcorn grunts, and I do like the visual styling better in some ways myself, but ninja-death-steamroller elite unit in 7 to popcorn grunt in F and Delta is too much of a role downgrade to hold any of my respect, or deserve the nickname "Nightmare Plus." Having a stupid inertia-ignoring flip included in the transformation animations in the games just makes it worse, because just watching it on the screen makes me feel a little queasy let alone imagining being the pilot.

[Black Aeronaut]

I think I've almost got the next update together. Just need to put together yet another fight scene, add in a few bits and bobs, and then run through it a time or two to make sure everything is lining up just right.

That said, don't expect in any less than a week from now at the bare minimum.

[classicdrogn]

Clkearly, things came up to make a mockery of that last estimate. Any news on this front lately?

[Black Aeronaut]

Never managed to make much progress on that front, unfortunately. I'll see what I can do this week.

[classicdrogn]

No pressure, just asking. I like the story so far, so I want to know what comes next