[Wesley84]

Originally Posted by Haesslich

It blew a cliff wall out, vaporizing it without sending debris all over the city - you can see in shots after the fact that the city itself, underneath, was completely intact. The blast was channeled narrowly through the cliff wall, over the sea, then out into space - where it split into two. VERY fine control of the beam, that last bit... certainly finely enough to have kept anyone from getting hurt, if you'll look at later scenes. There were ONLY thousands of people living on South Ataria Island, so saying that 'thousands died' there is like saying that millions died in the San Francisco Earthquake of the early 1900's... aka fearmongering and hyperbole.

Tens of thousands lived there, so there were thousands to spare, so it's not hyperbolic. And certainly parts of the city were flooded, which would bring it's own deathtoll. Probably not "thousands" though. I don't know, I've two different frames and one of them seems to imply the city as gone and flooded, but another shows it completely untouched.

Sense says the city would have been wiped out if the cliff had been with large amounts of sea water also being vaporized. I see no reason why an alien defense system would give a crap about the meatbags and their residences if they're in the way of it's targets.

As for the Fold system, you'll notice in later episodes that a fold doesn't take a damned island with it. That was an unexpected accident - the reason they did it there was because they were still close to Earth, and they weren't expecting the fold system to take everything around the ship with it. Saying they should've known better is like saying we should've known that there were no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, or that the United States should've joined the war against the Axis powers in 1939 because if they didn't, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor some years later - the product of hindsight.

I appreciate that in hindsight it was obviously a bad idea. However, looking at it from Global's perspective, his tactics make no sense since the enemy uses spaceships that can cover the distance between the Earth and the moon in a matter of minutes. What good was entering Earth's atmosphere really supposed to do?

Add the fact he's meddling with demonstratably powerful, but alien technology that had already proven unpredictable twice in the same day, the risks should have been obvious, even if the consenquences weren't as such. Hell, worst case scenario he end's up rendering Earth unhabitable because Macross sponateously explodes. The fact that could have happened should have been all that was needed for him to keep the thing as far as from Earth as possible.

He's either stupid or believes Earth's expendable.

As for the Zentradi interest in Earth - Vrlitwhai's fleet had no interest in it. However, there are millions of rogue Zentradi fleets out there. Not all of them were under Bodole's command, or even his influence... which meant that anyone of them could've stumbled across Earth, and done something to it. Ditto the Supervision Armies, especially if they'd detected any trace of Protoculture influence on the planet (which existed before the Macross landed).

Still doesn't change the fact that Macross was a disaster for humanity, and the survivors spit on the graves of everyone that wasn't them.

Maybe Gundam SEED Destiny's more to your speed? It's a lot simpler to grasp, story-wise... or G-Gundam? Very simple there, and each Gundam doesn't have the problem of past history to clutter up the storyline, the way it does here.

Where have I indicated that I'm having a hard time "grasping" anything?

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

He's just trolling, Haess. He's just about admitted as such, previously, so there's no real point in listening him, especially when he doesn't know half of what he's talking about, having never finished the series.

Small dogs bark the loudest.

What he should really appreciate is the fact I haven't seen the entire series yet and just leave it at that for the time being (doubtless I'll have an opinion about future events ). I just know the ending and have noticed the bizarre reverence the future series have for the original, when Macross's maiden flight really got a bunch of people killed even if some good () came out of it (you don't see people lauding the Titanic and naming everything after it do you, even with the fact the disaster did alot to enhance maritime safety regulations, such as there absolutely must be enough lifeboats for everyone on board a ship?).