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Since this is sure to get some people cranked up, I am first going to explain what sources I believe are reasonable to use for mecha and equipment designs for my interpretation of the Robotech Universe.

Robotech, the original TV series. (duh)
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles (duh again)
Robotech: The Sentinels (though it has been de-cannonized by HG, it is still all we have to go on as far as that period of Robotech history goes.)
Robotech: The Movie (Also de-cannonized, but allot of the equipment fills a needed niche, and since I do include the events of the movie in my timeline.)

Designs and pre-production artwork from SDF Macross, Southern Cross and MOSPEADA. (MOSPEADA stuff especially is helpful for rounding out the Sentinels fleet.)

Macross Zero, Flashback 2012, Do You Remember Love and some additional Macross stuff. (Anything from the Macross series that comes from the time before the Macross and Robotech timelines split. This would include anything that was a development of SDF Macross mecha and ships, as well as anything that would have been in "development and design phase" in the Macross universe up to, say, 2014 or so. This also includes such events as discovering planet Eden.)

The 2nd Edition RPG and Tactics (Except for stuff like an Ajax with the cannons from a Defender. Sorry Kevin, not feeling that one! lol.)

The 1st Edition RPG (Some stuff from the old RPG, with a little rework in many cases. The EBSIS Battloids, for example.)

The comics (When the mecha are cool and fill a specific need.)

Obviously, this is taking a universalist view, but as you all have seen by this point, that is how "I roll."

So, without further ado, here is the VF-X-0 file:

http://www.robotechillustrated.com/un-s ... y-fighter/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robotech ... 099?ref=hl

Tim Wing wrote:Macross Zero, Flashback 2012, Do You Remember Love and some additional Macross stuff. (Anything from the Macross series that comes from the time before the Macross and Robotech timelines split.

Which means that this article should not be a part of your site... because the Robotech timeline split from the Macross one BEFORE 1999! There was, after all, no "third world war" in Macross that was going on before 1999, and there wasn't one after either. Never mind that the established facts which have been given for the VF-1's development backstory in Robotech explicitly contradict the existence of something like the VF-0.

In fact, as a fun note, the evidence in the Robotech: From the Stars canon comic implies the timeline may actually split even farther back than that... circa 1960 or even earlier!

Now, I'm sure that will raise a few eyebrows, so let me explain. The From the Stars comic shows us a letter Rick wrote to Roy in 1999 that's addressed to him aboard the carrier Kenosha, which identifies its hull number and Skull squadron's designation as well. The Kenosha is given the inexplicable number of CVN-90, which is WAY ahead of where we were in 1999. The most recent Nimitz-class carrier we had in 1999 was the Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), and the latest Enterprise (CVN-80) won't be ready until 2025!

Roy's squadron is also identified therein as the VF-84 Skull Squadron. Here's where it takes a left turn at the corner of weird and huh???. In the real world and the Macross 'verse, VF-84 was disestablished and passed the "Jolly Rogers" name to VF-103 in 1995, four years before the alien ship was to crash. VF-84 was known as the "Jolly Rogers" from 1 April 1960 to the squadron's disestablishment in 1995. The adopted that name out of tradition, because the new CO's old squad had been the previous Jolly Rogers unit (known as VF-17, VF-5B, and VF-61 at various points in its history). The "Jolly Rogers" name is never used in the RT comic, and instead VF-84 is asserted to be the Skull squadron... of which Roy was a member. Now, the tradition of the Jolly Rogers name goes back to 1943... if they went with "skull squadron" instead, that means that they either let the tradition die o at the last changing of hands (1959) or that it was never called "Jolly Rogers" to begin with, putting the earliest possible branch date at 1 January 1943.

Now, any of those dates should, if you're actually going by the rationale you stated, thoroughly disqualify all Macross universe designs from your project.



Of course, you already know my thoughts about Robotech fans trying to crowbar Macross mecha into Robotech where they clearly don't belong... so I'll leave that bit out.

Ah, prototype goodness!

Tim Wing wrote:Designs and pre-production artwork from SDF Macross, Southern Cross and MOSPEADA. (MOSPEADA stuff especially is helpful for rounding out the Sentinels fleet.)

Macross Zero, Flashback 2012, Do You Remember Love and some additional Macross stuff. (Anything from the Macross series that comes from the time before the Macross and Robotech timelines split. This would include anything that was a development of SDF Macross mecha and ships, as well as anything that would have been in "development and design phase" in the Macross universe up to, say, 2014 or so. This also includes such events as discovering planet Eden.)

None of which has any place in RT, especially the later Macross stuff.

Tim Wing wrote:The 2nd Edition RPG and Tactics (Except for stuff like an Ajax with the cannons from a Defender. Sorry Kevin, not feeling that one! lol.)

I believe you are refering to the Improvised Mecha Units. Yeah I agree there since they feel like "stealthed" production designs instead of limited small runs (ie a few) that IMUs imply.

Seto wrote:The Kenosha is given the inexplicable number of CVN-90, which is WAY ahead of where we were in 1999.

Of course with 10 years of Global War going on the numbers could have been give out faster for newer ships built to replace ones lost and indicate a the fleet was much larger than the 12 or so in service in that period in real life.

Nice, very nice!

ShadowLogan wrote:[

Seto wrote:The Kenosha is given the inexplicable number of CVN-90, which is WAY ahead of where we were in 1999.

Of course with 10 years of Global War going on the numbers could have been give out faster for newer ships built to replace ones lost and indicate a the fleet was much larger than the 12 or so in service in that period in real life.

Of course, if you're going through nuclear aircraft carriers at that rate, you're seriously boned....

taalismn wrote:Of course, if you're going through nuclear aircraft carriers at that rate, you're seriously boned....

... and how! It takes about 4-5 years to build a nuclear supercarrier on the scale of a Nimitz or Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, and another 2-3 years to certify a carrier as combat-ready before the ship is commissioned. If you're losing aircraft carriers so fast that you need to be 15 or more ahead of where the US was in 1999, then you've accidentally released a LOT of fuel-grade uranium into the environment, garnished with a LOT of corpses and planes. That war would have to have dragged on for easily upwards of a decade to justify having built fifteen more nuclear carriers than we have today.

Even the UN Forces in the original Macross 'verse only got their hull numbers for carriers up to 101 by inheriting the US system and combining the navies of the Unification Government's member nations, before building three more carriers based around Overtechnology... the CVN-99 Asuka II (seen in Macross Zero), CVN-100 Graf Zeppelin II (first explicitly seen in Macross the First, may have been a carrier in the background of the original series), and CVS-101 Prometheus.

or it is possible that with the onset of active war, they just built a bunch more. possibly even coming up with a class design that is easier to build quick, similar to what the US did in ww2 with the essex class.

the main reason there haven't been many carriers built in the last 20 years has been budget.. with the soviet union gone and conflicts moving more towards smaller scale regional ones, getting budget for new carriers was really hard until some of the existing ships started getting just too old for effective use. leading ot the current Ford class, which is being built much slower than the ones before it.

with a major war or two breaking out, getting budget to build more would be easier.

in macross, they had the need post-1999 to arm up to stop the Anti-UN.
in robotech, you have years of world war in the 90's, involving some major enemies with presence in the pacific (if the comic is anything to go by)

With a major war going on between high-tech nations, I'd think the facilities to build aircraft carriers would be among the priority targets for conventional cruise missile attacks at the least.
Though if several hulls were in the a-building when shipyards got nailed, would that jump a few hull numbers, or are those only for vessels that get officially commissioned into service?

with big ships like that, the numbers are assigned before any hull parts are even laid down. so perhaps. though seems unlikely.

taalismn wrote:With a major war going on between high-tech nations, I'd think the facilities to build aircraft carriers would be among the priority targets for conventional cruise missile attacks at the least.

During wartime, they'd also have an excellent air defense network protecting them, making the threat from a cruise missile somewhere north of negligible unless there was a large-scale serial bombardment going on.

taalismn wrote:Though if several hulls were in the a-building when shipyards got nailed, would that jump a few hull numbers, or are those only for vessels that get officially commissioned into service?

Only if the hulls were already well underway and were somehow so comprehensively destroyed that the yard couldn't undo the damage... which would be a REALLY REALLY tall order. Not impossible, but you'd require a LOT of firepower to put a ship that size beyond the yard's repair while it was in drydock. In the US, which is how it'd be done since the Kenosha is a US Navy ship, hull designations are assigned before the keel is laid, usually when the construction contract is awarded. Names usually come later.

All conventional launch carriers belong to the same hull number series... So, if the US Navy started building replacements for the Midway-class carriers that were being decommissioned in the late eighties through early nineties, they to would have received hull numbers in the same series as their supercarrier big brothers. (For size comparison Midway-class displacement: 45,000 tons; Nimitz-class displacement: 106,300 tons. The midway class was almost as long though, so it would be able to accommodate F/A-18s.) So these carriers being half the weight, and conventionally powered could conceivably be built at a significantly faster rate....

Nice topic hijack, btw! lol.

So, timelines!

The realworld and the Robotech world diverge sometime around 1980, give or take... whenever the final draft for the original Macross script was submitted (I say Macross script, not Robotech Script, since the Macross came first. But you can of course make a case either one. In the end, the split would be moved up slightly to 1984'ish. Regardless, I made my split in 1979, with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets.)

Then, you have the Macross and Robotech world intersect in 1999 with the crash of the SDF-1, only to split immediately for the time period of the Unification War. They then intersect at the SDF-1's launch, only to split again at the conclusion of Dolza's attack. After this split, they intersect again for the short period of reconstruction shown in the Robotech/SDFM and split a final time at Khyron's attack on New Macross City.

See my handy illustration:

http://www.robotechillustrated.com/wp-c ... 09/121.jpg

So, what does that mean? Well, it means that Macross mecha not actually seen in the series, really do not belong in Robotech, from a purist's point of view.

So why am I including them on the Robotech Illustrated website? Partly self-indulgence... They are interesting designs after all. But also because one can reasonably argue that as long as there is no immediate contradiction, then it should be okay, right? I mean, the events of Macross in this time period mirror those of Robotech, in this same time period... why shouldn't the mecha reflect as well? In the end, I fully accept that this is a pretty week argument. And, of course, if HG ever does a series that takes place during this time period, we would not see ANY Macross mecha, due to copyright issues.

So, I'm going with the idea that mecha development in Macross and Robotech mirror each-other from 1999 to 2014. This is, of course, the wrong answer. But I'm okay with that.

Seto wrote:.. and how! It takes about 4-5 years to build a nuclear supercarrier on the scale of a Nimitz or Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers, and another 2-3 years to certify a carrier as combat-ready before the ship is commissioned

That is in peace time rate though.

And you are assuming that its nuclear supercarrier being built in each case. You are also assuming the US produced all these carriers to get the number jump, when it could possibly have acquired/absorbed them from other nations resulting in them receiving a new number and name.

Seto wrote:If you're losing aircraft carriers so fast that you need to be 15 or more ahead of where the US was in 1999,

We don't know for sure that the aircraft carriers are being lost that fast though in the Global War. The US might have needed to expand the size of its fleet to meet its needs as compared to the real US Navy in 1999 (which was on peace time footing).

Tim Wing wrote:So, timelines!

The realworld and the Robotech world diverge sometime around 1980, give or take... whenever the final draft for the original Macross script was submitted (I say Macross script, not Robotech Script, since the Macross came first. But you can of course make a case either one. In the end, the split would be moved up slightly to 1984'ish. Regardless, I made my split in 1979, with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets.)

Personally everyone is going to have their own opinion regarding when/where the Robotech time line split from reality. when the Global Civil War started and who was on what side. For example, I had my timeline split in 1992 after Iraq lobbed a few SCUDs with chemical warheads at Israel.

Tim Wing wrote:So, I'm going with the idea that mecha development in Macross and Robotech mirror each-other from 1999 to 2014. This is, of course, the wrong answer. But I'm okay with that.

If you think about it the first chapter of Robotech and Macross are simply parallel realities so incorporating Macross designs into Robotech isn't too far fetched......

Tim Wing wrote:The realworld and the Robotech world diverge sometime around 1980, give or take... [...]

As I've just illustrated, this is emphatically an underestimation... with evidence in official sources suggesting that the timeline for the Robotech version branched from the real world potentially as early as the 2nd World War. Sadly, this sort of thing is a problem that affects entirely too many fan-made compendiums for Robotech... where the author simply didn't do his research and ends up misinforming his audience.

This can sometimes snowball into problems that affect Robotech products... like how Palladium's 2nd Edition Robotech RPG accidentally included several things that DON'T EXIST in Robotech, most blatantly the wrong cockpit art for the VF-1 and the inexplicable inclusion of the UUM-7 micro-missile pods that didn't appear until DYRL.

Tim Wing wrote:Then, you have the Macross and Robotech world intersect in 1999 with the crash of the SDF-1, only to split immediately for the time period of the Unification War.

The intersection is ONLY in the event that an alien ship crashed in the South Pacific... other than that single, bare fact, there really isn't much common ground in terms of the actual details of the setting.

Tim Wing wrote:They then intersect at the SDF-1's launch, only to split again at the conclusion of Dolza's attack.

There's that "did not do research" at work... they intersect very briefly and only in the most basic sense at the Macross's launch ceremony, but split again almost immediately because Harmony Gold tried to drag all the events of the war out across a period two years longer than it was in Macross. Literally those two timelines are in rough alignment only in February of 2009 and are back out of alignment again almost right away.

Tim Wing wrote:After this split, they intersect again for the short period of reconstruction shown in the Robotech/SDFM and split a final time at Khyron's attack on New Macross City.

No they don't... if you'd done even the most basic fact-check, you'd realize that gulf between events in the original Macross version and the Robotech version are separated by a gulf of over a year at this point, with the end of Space War 1 being on 11 February 2010 but the end of the 1st Robotech War having occurred in April of 2011 (14 months difference), and the end of Kamjin/Khyron's revolt being TWO YEARS apart (January 2012 vs January 2014). Similar events, completely different timeframe and circumstances.

Tim Wing wrote:So, what does that mean? Well, it means that Macross mecha not actually seen in the series, really do not belong in Robotech, from a purist's point of view.

What it means is that the Macross and Robotech timelines really aren't compatible, and trying to cram things from Macross that official Robotech sources rule out the existence of on no uncertain terms means that you're not making a reference site for Robotech... or even Macross. What you have here is some horridly unnecessary fan-fiction crossover that's subtly insulting to both, as it insinuates that Robotech is just "American Macross" and that Macross is somehow not a stand-alone series apart from Robotech.

I suppose it also means that you didn't do your research when you were assembling articles for your site... but that's a personal problem.

Tim Wing wrote:But also because one can reasonably argue that as long as there is no immediate contradiction, then it should be okay, right?

No, it's not. These are not Robotech designs, and they don't belong in Robotech because neither the setting nor the story supports their existence. To try to force them into Robotech is effectively an implicit accusation that the Robotech story is so weak it cannot stand on its own merits. It could also easily be interpreted as a statement that Macross only has value as part of Robotech, and not as the story the original creators were telling.

By this point, the Robotech fandom should've long outgrown that bizarre habit of trying to adopt other shows into Robotech.

Tim Wing wrote:I mean, the events of Macross in this time period mirror those of Robotech, in this same time period... why shouldn't the mecha reflect as well?

Because the context of the events is considerably different, and a multitude of Robotech stories and sources exist that illustrate WHY these designs do not belong in Robotech. The development of the veritech fighters in Robotech was carried out by "military scientists" including Dr. Lang, not by some private defense contractors, and there has never been any mention or evidence of a design contest of the type explicitly seen and mentioned in various Macross works. Likewise, there's no evidence of those events that made deploying the VF-0 necessary, so adopting it into Robotech makes no sense at all.

There's an even more extreme example in the treatment of the VF-X-4 from Macross. In Macross, it's a non-transformable prototype knocked together out of VF-1 parts that's radically different from the final design. In Robotech, that oddly proportioned VF-X-4 is a working, transformable prototype version of the canceled final aircraft... not only is it never adopted by the military, but the final aircraft's basic shape and size aren't even the same, let alone the rest of its particulars.

Pretty much the ONLY Macross design that's not in the animation of the original series that's OK to use for Robotech is the unused concept for the SDF-2 Megalord... because Carl Macek himself actually used that for the SDF-2 in Robotech in the Comico comics, which is actually the ONLY time that design ever got used by anyone.

Tim Wing wrote:In the end, I fully accept that this is a pretty week argument. And, of course, if HG ever does a series that takes place during this time period, we would not see ANY Macross mecha, due to copyright issues.

Harmony Gold ALREADY did a story set in roughly the same time period as the VF-0 was from... in what will now come as a complete lack of surprise, it concerned prototype testing OF THE VF-1 as the sole prototype-in-testing for "Project Valkyrie", the development of a transformable fighter. No VF-0, no VF-X-2... just the prototype they call the YF-1S, which they assert eventually became Roy's VF-1S. It's the canon comic they first released when they rebooted the franchise... Robotech: From the Stars. It also shows us, very briefly, that the YF-4 had been canned in the prototype phase and that they were already test-flying early prototypes of what would become the Alpha fighter in 2015, so no VF-4 either.

In short, Harmony Gold's been there... done that. They've torpedoed the idea that there's any place for any Macross OSM designs from outside the series so hard that we found the Higgs boson in the wreckage.

Thus why I ignore what HG did and do my own thing. Mind you I make no bones about what I am doing so....

jaymz wrote:Thus why I ignore what HG did and do my own thing. Mind you I make no bones about what I am doing so....

Y'know what would actually make great branching-off points in keeping with the post-World War II branching idea that Harmony Gold's work seems to suggest?

The Cuban missile crisis... or maybe that famous "We will bury you" speech Khrushchev made that ended up elevating the hostility in the Cold War because of a mistranslation in a statement that was really more like a Russian equivalent of "Eh... it's your funeral buddy".

Considering the Russians are suggested to have been opposed to the US in the Global War in "From the Stars", it seems likely that the branching point may have even been when the Cold War turned hot... and those two are pretty significant turning points in the Cold War. Maybe Kennedy invaded Cuba to oust the Russians, and that launched a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact war.

Kind of a horrid perversion of the original Macross backstory though... where, in the 80's, before the Iron Curtain even fell, they had Russia as one of the six major nations moving for the Unification Government (alongside the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan).

Seto Kaiba wrote:Kind of a horrid perversion of the original Macross backstory though... where, in the 80's, before the Iron Curtain even fell, they had Russia as one of the six major nations moving for the Unification Government (alongside the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, and Japan).

Not much different than USSR/Russia being part of the UN Security council though....

Of course, by now we should have had the Alderson Drive and the CoDominium to oversee the exploitation of space.

jaymz wrote:Not much different than USSR/Russia being part of the UN Security council though....

'lil more severe than that, I think... since this was basically 1999 Soviet Russia (yes, I know, they amended it later to reflected that it'd become the Russian Federation after the wall fell) deciding that they really were OK with rubbing shoulders with the capitalists and opening its borders not just to Europe but to the entire world's population.

Pretty big reversal there.

I'm having a hard time understanding your gripe, Kaiba. Tim's doing what he wants, which is essentially what HG did. He seems more interested in a Macross/Robotech blend of his own cherrypicking than canon. I think that's fine amd I like to read other people's takes on things. I as well disregard a great deal of HG and Macross both when I run the game. If you see something on the internet created by someone who isn't official staff of the official controllers of an IP, be prepared for deviation.

You yourself said Robotech is essentially a Macross fanfic, now you're getting on this guy for doing his own thing.

Seto Kaiba wrote:Considering the Russians are suggested to have been opposed to the US in the Global War in "From the Stars", it seems likely that the branching point may have even been when the Cold War turned hot... and those two are pretty significant turning points in the Cold War. Maybe Kennedy invaded Cuba to oust the Russians, and that launched a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact war.

actually the impression i got in the comic wasn't that russia was hostile.. after all, the US force wasn't concerned that Gloval's ship was a russian one, but rather they were afraid that the russians had sold the ship to someone else, who was an enemy. so the impression i got was that russia was largely neutral in whatever conflict the US was involved in in the pacific.. and the US was just concerned about the possible technology transfer of a nuclear armed advanced submarine to a hostile group.

this is why i wrote my baltic EBSIS material (and my other RPG material) assuming that the global war was centered mainly around the middle eastern conflicts (as we see in the show's brief visuals about the global war) and a more aggressive China.
that somewhere along the way, the reforms china went through in the late 1980's resulted not in a move to a more commercialized nation with ties to the global market, but instead a very aggressive, expansionist conservative regime. honestly, if i had to pick a turning point, i'd say Tiananmen Square in 1989, which IRL nearly toppled the reform focused Deng Xiaoping, but he pulled through and the losses of several key reformers was a temporary thing. but if the purge of reformers by conservative elements had continued (unlike IRL where it got curtailed) Deng Xiaoping could well have been ousted, and a more hard line regime emerged. perhaps one that focused on military expenditures and nationalism to bolster their internal economy. going after tiawan, korea, vietnam and other areas they claim historically, perhaps forging ties with middle eastern and african nations to get access to external trade, what have you. not as technologically advanced but scare due to sheer size.

Hey GB....you might want to correct that quote....that is Seto's not mine...

Alrik - if anyone here has a major twist on the Robotech timeline....it's me I crammed in Mechanoids, Manhunter, Macross Prime (the primary timeline including all the mainline Macross titles), and Macross DYRL timeline (This is the one that includes Macross II) as one big overarching history/present/future timeline. Mind you as I said, I make no bones about doing such and that it is "my" Robotech nothing more.

Alrik Vas wrote:I'm having a hard time understanding your gripe, Kaiba. [...] I as well disregard a great deal of HG and Macross both when I run the game.

There's a pretty big difference between doing it as part of a RPG session, where taking liberties with what's in the official setting is so expected that it's taken as read, and presenting it as a researched fact file. An indecent amount of the Robotech fandom's self-inflicted confusion and bad press results from lots of the fans mistakenly assuming that these allegedly-researched fact file sites are presenting accurate info. Take a look at the sheer number of times bad information is passed with the words "the uRRG says". That's why an unfortunate stereotype of Robotech fans is that they know less about Robotech than the so-called "haters" and "Macross purists".

This sort of thing was understandable back in the 90's when the internet was new-ish and fans had little idea that Macross was and is a significantly more prolific stand-alone franchise, and before we had anything resembling an official resource online or in print. Now that we DO have official resources for Robotech, and have had them for years along with the knowledge that Macross is a franchise quite apart from the Robotech universe, there's no reason to present a "fact file" for Robotech that doesn't reflect the actual content of Robotech unless your goal is to misinform. Especially this. There's an entire limited comic series that practically exists to demonstrate why this design (and the VF-4) have absolutely no place in Robotech... never mind that the whole rewriting thing hasn't been acceptable in anime for decades.

Alrik Vas wrote:Tim's doing what he wants, which is essentially what HG did.

Not really, no... Harmony Gold combined three shows by the same studio from the same period because they literally had no other choice to meet the demands of their partners. and because back then it was accepted as a necessity of the industry. There's no such justification for fans to try to cram things that don't belong to Robotech into Robotech in this day in age. Is the Robotech setting and story SO LACKING that it cannot stand without stealing ideas from other, unrelated shows?

Considering the Russians are suggested to have been opposed to the US in the Global War in "From the Stars", it seems likely that the branching point may have even been when the Cold War turned hot... and those two are pretty significant turning points in the Cold War. Maybe Kennedy invaded Cuba to oust the Russians, and that launched a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact war.

That would be to early though, if Cuban Missile Crisis was the cause, or the Bay of Pigs had US air support.

The Global War is said to last 10years, which would put it starting in 1989. And there are several events that could turn out differently that result in a Global War.

There's a pretty big difference between doing it as part of a RPG session, where taking liberties with what's in the official setting is so expected that it's taken as read, and presenting it as a researched fact file.

Wait a second, at what point did I say that this was an official fact file? I should think that it is pretty self-evident that this web-site is not a product of Harmony Gold. If it was, it would be robotech.com. And it would not have copy right disclaimers at the bottom of every article.

This site is fan-fic. Really, anything that isn't endorsed by HG is a fan-fic. The uRRG was a fan-fic as well. We never made any attempt at the time to claim that it was endorsed by HG either.

Tim Wing wrote:Wait a second, at what point did I say that this was an official fact file?

You didn't say it was official (and I didn't say that you did either), but you HAVE presented it as a researched fact file... both in format and in the bloody title. You present it as a Reference Guide, when that term is used principally for authoritative reference books. That's misleading the same way the uRRG was, though like the uRRG I'm sure there's a disclaimer somewhere that indicates it's fan-fic, which most visitors will never see, and even fewer will heed because it presents itself as a well-researched source.

To put the cherry on it, you only cite the copyright for Robotech in this article... which suggests this is actually a Robotech design copyrighted by Harmony Gold, and it is neither of those things.

Tim Wing wrote:I should think that it is pretty self-evident that this web-site is not a product of Harmony Gold. f it was, it would be robotech.com. And it would not have copy right disclaimers at the bottom of every article.

Your disclaimers only indicate where you sourced the material from (two reputable Macross websites whose work IS an authoritative and reliable source of information distilled directly from the official sources) and that Robotech itself is owned by Harmony Gold. No mention of Big West and Studio Nue, owners of Macross and the VF-0 design.

You present this as though it's an official Robotech design.

Tim Wing wrote:The uRRG was a fan-fic as well. We never made any attempt at the time to claim that it was endorsed by HG either.

And people STILL wrongly assumed that the uRRG was a reliable source of information because it presented itself as a well-researched reference to Robotech. This is not the first time I've pointed this fact out to you.

Some of the more egregious and inexplicable errors made by the uRRG's staff have had lasting effects upon Robotech, thanks to the incorrect information they passed along to Harmony Gold under the guise of it being researched and OSM-derived.

The disclaimer I have at the end of every article is thus:

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights. (Incidentally, this is the exact same disclaimer we used in the uRRG.)

However, you are right, I should add disclaimers for Macross, Southern Cross, MOSPEADA and Megazone 23 as well.

Now, I will endeavor to make clear that this is a fan-fic. But hell, what can I do that will satisfy? With the uRRG, we even put the word unofficial in our tittle! And people still quoted us as the authoritative source! Even HG had us write the mecha descriptions for robotech.com! It seems to me, the only two choices I have is to either A) write things that you agree with or B) not have a web page at all!

Now, obviously, I cannot promise to only post stuff you agree with. Nor do I have any interest is shutting down this site. Instead, why don't we both take a deep breath, and relax.

Tim Wing wrote:With the uRRG, we even put the word

unofficial

in our tittle!

Yes, and people were still misled because all "unofficial" means in this case is "We're not Harmony Gold!". If you present your fan-fiction work as a reference website, then (deliberately or not) you're being openly misleading about the nature of your site's content. Presented, as it is, as a reference work, you've made the implicit assertion that your work is well-researched and accurate, if not authoritative.

Tim Wing wrote:And people still quoted us as the authoritative source!

Which, as I've pointed out previously, is demonstrably a very bad thing.

Why? Simple. The uRRG is packed to bursting with fan-fiction presented in exactly the same manner as the rather limited body of information drawn from the OSM, to the point where many Robotech fans made the mistake of believing that the site's contents were accurate and authoritative. That people mistook your misinformation for accurate reportage is nothing to be proud of.

Tim Wing wrote:Even HG had us write the mecha descriptions for robotech.com!

And the fandom has had cause to regret it ever since... there's so much wrong in there that even the most inexperienced translators are left scratching their heads and wondering how the uRRG writers couldn't even tell the difference between a 3 and an 8, or copy dimensions written in arabic numerals correctly.

Tim Wing wrote:It seems to me, the only two choices I have is to either A) write things that you agree with or B) not have a web page at all!

*sigh* ... do I have to make the Aesop anvilicious? You're not going to get a lot of acceptance for a rather taboo topic like trying to unnecessarily import a Macross design into Robotech, which we know you know is a really bad idea from your first post. Honestly, the only point I'm making (apart from there being no need to molest Macross to unnecessarily add to a part of Robotech that has been covered rather well by Harmony Gold with its own pseudo-original stories) is that you should not be presenting fan-fiction (especially contentious and horrifically inaccurate-to-the-setting fan-fiction) in the format of a REFERENCE GUIDE, because that carries the implicit and instantly dishonest assertion that the information is accurately reflecting the content of Robotech.

The disclaimer I have at the end of every article is thus:

Robotech (R) is the property of Harmony Gold. This document is in no way intended to infringe upon their rights. (Incidentally, this is the exact same disclaimer we used in the uRRG.)

However, you are right, I should add disclaimers for Macross, Southern Cross, MOSPEADA and Megazone 23 as well.

Now, I will endeavor to make clear that this is a fan-fic. But hell, what can I do that will satisfy? With the uRRG, we even put the word unofficial in our tittle! And people still quoted us as the authoritative source! Even HG had us write the mecha descriptions for robotech.com! It seems to me, the only two choices I have is to either A) write things that you agree with or B) not have a web page at all!

Now, obviously, I cannot promise to only post stuff you agree with. Nor do I have any interest is shutting down this site. Instead, why don't we both take a deep breath, and relax

Tim, I can understand Seto's frustration. As the ONLY Macross expert on this forum and once upon a time at RT.com and RobotechX forum (before he became the public enemy number 1 to most RT fans due to his oh-so-I'm-rightfully-right-you're-dead-wrong-on-everything-Macross - which he IS always right, unfortunately to us lesser mortals), Seto had to correct various queries or data msrepresentation due to the fanworks of uRRG (amongst others) adapted from Macross to RT.

A classic case would be VFX-4 / YF-4 that somehow uRRG and Dave Dietrich's Macross Mecha Design page took liberties adapting VF-4 Lightning III into RT-verse.
Many casual RT fans thought that VF-4 actually existed and an official mecha in RT-verse, due to uRRG's VF-4 entry in its website.

Seto himself had corrected me on a few occasion both on this forum and RT.com (and also on MW where I sometime, posted). He can be (actually still is) pain in the neck when nitpicking our 'facts', but that is a given.

Back to the topic at hand, adapting VF-0 in RT-verse is a matter of personal choice, however, I have to agree with Seto. When I take a look at your site, the first thing comes to mind is this is uRRG 2.0 redux. Unlike Robotech Research (by Kenneth Olson) and Steelfalcon.com (Dave Dietrich) in which most casual fans will take 'cold-hard' data from these two websites with a pinch of salt (due to its obvious RPG adaptation to enrich RPG-gaming), uRRG had a reputation of adapting Macross mecha that never appeared in the SDFM adaptation into Robotech as FACT. I said this because in the past, I was a hardcore RT purist that took uRRG word by word and misrepresented uRRG (from its early days as Robotech Technical Guide) entries as official.

That is why, not to repeat my previous mistakes, I mostly published my fan essays while reiterating that it is adapted works not to be taken as canon or official in RT-verse.

My advice is that, you may put a disclaimer stating your fanwork is not canonised or official in Robotech and posted it in the frontpage of your website, just to be safe.

OTOH, the first adaptation of VF-0 into RT-verse would be from the now-defunct Southern Cross Recruitment Manual by Nathan Babcook (oh, it was STILL the best Southern Cross website at that time).

I myself makes a passing mention of VF-0 (just fluffs) in my fanfic essays detailing in the Genesis: Global Civil War. However, I like the way you describing VF-0 as prototypes that never went into mass-production, sticking closer in principle with VF-0 of Macross 0.

Protoculture wrote:Tim, I can understand Seto's frustration. As the ONLY Macross expert on this forum and once upon a time at RT.com and RobotechX forum (before he became the public enemy number 1 to most RT fans due to his oh-so-I'm-rightfully-right-you're-dead-wrong-on-everything-Macross - which he IS always right, unfortunately to us lesser mortals),

Wow... I feel the love.

Seriously though, I was never the ONLY Macross expert... just one of the few who believed (and still does believe) that the best remedy for ignorance is knowledge, not scathing contempt. I've never thought I'm always right, I just have better access to information than most since I collect rare art books and have enough of a grasp of Japanese to provide information from the most complete, direct, and reliable sources possible. There's good reason that even people who (understandably) find me frustrating come to me for information.

Also, I've never been Public Enemy No.1... never even close. Never will be, either, as long as the old farts are still around and Tommy's running the show, since their favorite mantra is "He changed it, now it sucks!"

Protoculture wrote:Seto had to correct various queries or data msrepresentation due to the fanworks of uRRG (amongst others) adapted from Macross to RT.

Actually, I still get at least 2-3 questions a month referred to me by e-mail or other means that fall under a general header of "misconceptions Robotech fans have about the Macross, Southern Cross, and MOSPEADA series, the greater Macross franchise, and how it all relates to Robotech"... even though I haven't been part of a proper Robotech fan community since 2008.

Of the inquiries I receive, the overwhelming majority involve misinformation put out there by Robotech fan sites like the uRRG or RobotechResearch, which "adopt" non-Robotech mecha into the setting. The usual format is either "<site> said _____________, is that on the level?" or "<site> listed this mecha that I have never seen before, is it Robotech?". Unsurprisingly, the two most common "is this RT?" mecha I get asked about are the VF-1 Strike Valkyrie and VF-4 Lightning III.

It actually goes both ways too... for a while there, I was getting a lot of inquiries about why no Macross sites list the "YF-1R" or "VF-1R" from Robotech. Because Harmony Gold made it a thing, it occasionally gets mistaken for a legit Macross design by Robotech fans. In the past six months or so, there's been a lot of inquiries about Southern Cross mecha though.


My thought on the website, as expressed above (which I will elaborate upon briefly), is that we really don't need more confusion out there. Robotech is a big boy, it doesn't need to lean on papa Macross like this. There's no reason to be borrowing designs from other shows, especially when the official lore for Robotech rules their existence out.

What Robotech NEEDS, and what Tim is actually reasonably well-equipped to deliver, is an ACCURATE reference site to catalog the official lore. They need something like the Macross Compendium or Macross Mecha Manual... the kind of definitive source that Robotech.com's Infopedia has failed to develop into. I'd once thought of doing a site like that myself, but I couldn't get anyone else I know interested in helping to develop the content even though we had all the logistics in place.

Dude I would have helped whatever way I could

That was likely well after you had already decided not too though

jaymz wrote:Dude I would have helped whatever way I could

That was likely well after you had already decided not too though

It's actually STILL on the back burner... I don't think we were so well-acquainted at the time it got put on the back burner though. Never did delete the subdomain I'd set up for it.

Well if I can help, IF you decide to do it, I'll help where I can.

jaymz wrote:Alrik - if anyone here has a major twist on the Robotech timeline....it's me I crammed in Mechanoids, Manhunter, Macross Prime (the primary timeline including all the mainline Macross titles), and Macross DYRL timeline (This is the one that includes Macross II) as one big overarching history/present/future timeline. Mind you as I said, I make no bones about doing such and that it is "my" Robotech nothing more.

Jaymz, I'd also been thinking of adapting Mechanoids as a progenitor to Haydonites. In fact, in my current revised timeline, I'd included Mechanoids as the dominant species that dominated the universe history until they vanished entirely from recorded history, preceding the primitive human transplantation from Earth to Tyrol and Praxis and subsequent rise of Robotech Imperium era. A nasty idea in which I've been digesting is that the enslaved humans on alien worlds (Tyrolians and Praxians) instigated a rebellion in which Organics (carbon based species) against Mechanoids overlords. My POV, the Organics coalition would be led by Haydon (a mythical race related to Mechanoids), Invid supplying protoculture or organic technology, the ancient Praxians as the warrior class, the ancient Tyrolians and other alien races as footsoldiers. The war would ended with the first Invid homeworld bombed (and ancient Invid relocated to Optera, meanwhile another branch of ancient Invid survivors evolved to Paranoids), humans on Tyrol slid to pre-historic barbarism, female warriors on Praxis developed to become Solnoid Empire. Mechanoids would simply disappear, and faded into legends and obscurity. The same can be said of Haydon.

In fact, I am also adapting Gallforce -verse into the timeline, in which Solnoids represented the ancient Praxians that first discovered space flight and colonising major worlds before clashing with Paranoids, a branch of ancient spacefaring Invid (taking cues from RTSC, it was mentioned that Invid forefathers fled the 1st Invid homeworld as it was bombed by Children of the Shadow - aka Haydonite or their ancestors - and the Invid fled to Optera). The devastating planetary wars between Solnoid Empire (of ancient Praxians) vs Paranoids would ultimately ended with the extinction of Paranoids, while the Praxians suffered a near extinction of their own with Praxis just barely surviving the aftereffects of the wars ad slowly slid to low-tech Dark Age feudalism.

Maybe I was just looking at my own understanding. I know a lot of really cool Macross mecha isn't a part of Robotech, so when I see someone adapt it for their own purposes I like to read about their ideas.

That said, I can see the confusion and pointless arguments it can start. People will believe anything they read on the internet...

Friendly reminder from the moderator team. Don't make your posts about each other. Critiquing work is fine, as long as its done in a constructive manner.

[quote="Protoculture]
Jaymz, I'd also been thinking of adapting Mechanoids as a progenitor to Haydonites. In fact, in my current revised timeline,\.[/quote]


Interesting. The Mechanoids as progenitors of somebody else, and not as the end-all of evolution themselves? The few cases we have of hinted-at Mecahnoid spin-offs(in Three Galaxies mainly), it's a grey goo situation when somebody uncorks a piece of Mechanoid tech.

I would be interested in doing a legitimate reference guide, in the same vain as the Macross compendium.... but man, hard data on anything Robotech is a little hard to come bye.

But it begs the question: What can we consider a viable resource? Or, put another way, say I'm constructing a file for the VF-1. What sources can one use?

I think, it would go a little like this, in order of importance:

Robotech the original TV series
The Shadow Chronicles (not that it applies to the VF-1)
The canon comic books
Robotech.com
The Shadow Chronicles Art Book
Macross OSM, where it does not contradict the Robotech material of course.

Tim Wing wrote:But it begs the question: What can we consider a viable resource? Or, put another way, say I'm constructing a file for the VF-1. What sources can one use?

Harmony Gold's current creative staff seems to be pretty keen on using the OSM wherever they can... they've even built entire stories out of bits and pieces of events from the OSM timelines (like From the Stars... which was made out of various minor events from the Macross timeline).

If one looks at how Harmony Gold has historically treated their various works since the reboot, it'd look a bit more like this:

Robotech television series
Canon stats (various sources) & OSM (In most cases, these are close to the same thing)
The Shadow Chronicles and Love Live ALive
Canon Comics