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Old 2008-05-12, 21:20   Link #61
Burner of Anime
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Originally Posted by Tak View Post
Moreover, VF-19s would have been at least 20 years old by the events of Frontier. Pretty outdated, if you ask me.

- Tak
QR Metlandi powered armour- several thousand years and still kicking human @ss.

The thing about the VF-19 and 22 is the need for some really ace pilots to bring the best out of them. As it is, the rationale for downgrading a special operations fighter [vf 17] to a frontline heavy fighter[vf 171] makes better sense for the rank and file air grunt. It's fairly robust, is a proven design with all the requisite hardpoints for any operation and doubles up as a stealth fighter when needed. I suspect that cheap and effective is what the current military government is aiming for.

So that leave private enterprise to throw in the money for higher end mecha and experianced personnel. Makes sense when genocidal war and unknown terrority become bad for business
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Old 2008-05-12, 21:23   Link #62
Tak
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Originally Posted by Burner of Anime View Post
QR Metlandi powered armour- several thousand years and still kicking human @ss.
Now see, that ain't fair. We know Zent weapons have beyond-lifetime warranty and infinite guarantee, that and human technology never quite caught up to their level.

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-12, 21:34   Link #63
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Originally Posted by Tak View Post
Now see, that ain't fair. We know Zent weapons have beyond-lifetime warranty and infinite guarantee, that and human technology never quite caught up to their level.

- Tak
Well, when you have automated factories that churn out war materiel that's good enough that the Supervision Army would dedicate itself to hunting down some of them...

Anyone else think that Klein Klan sounded almost like a saleswoman there? "They never, EVER break down!" is a nice way to pitch a weapon.

As for the uniformity of fighters across fleets, we know that the companies in question were (at least originally) based on Earth, and the spacefold technology makes it so that you could make deliveries of such technology, or at least the templates for the automated factories, fairly feasable as long as you keep in regular contact with Earth (which they do, as far as we can tell) and Eden. Beyond that, it comes down to a matter of the budgets that the fleets have for their branches of the UN Spacy/NUNS as well as the level of training and logistics they can support. Frontier's fleet seems to have been spoiled by peacetime, while Macross 7's fleet (given they had Max and Milia Jenius along as commander and mayor) seems to have kept up training pretty well.

That, and this way the NUNS provides the 'grunts' who get blown out of the sky to make our heroes in SMS look good...
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Old 2008-05-12, 22:57   Link #64
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tak View Post
Now see, that ain't fair. We know Zent weapons have beyond-lifetime warranty and infinite guarantee, that and human technology never quite caught up to their level.

- Tak
Err not really acutally if you pay attention at all it's pretty blatantly obvious that the humans are leaving the Zent stuff behind rather rapidly AND that it's breaking down all the time; acutally this is a major plot point in the first series the Zents are flabbergasted that the humans acutally repaired the ship becasue they can't fix there own when they break (which they DO). I mean for god sake with a good pilot a VF-1 could fight off a Queadlunn Rau and I'd kind of hope that a fighter built oh 50 years later could outperform the first VF ever. Personally I think these Queadlunn Rau's MUST have been subjected to some serious upgrades over the years, and that would make sense after all the UN dosen't seem to be building new full sized Zent mecha so they'd be stuck with improving what they have if they wanted to go into combat in that form. To that end the Queadlunn Rau is easily the most capable design they have and so would be the logical choice for an upgrade program.
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Old 2008-05-12, 23:06   Link #65
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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
Err not really acutally if you pay attention at all it's pretty blatantly obvious that the humans are leaving the Zent stuff behind rather rapidly AND that it's breaking down all the time; acutally this is a major plot point in the first series the Zents are flabbergasted that the humans acutally repaired the ship becasue they can't fix there own when they break (which they DO).
And if you pay equal attention to my post, you will note the first half is sarcasm, while the second half is a criticism to the relative 'quality' of human weapons compared to Zent ones. The latter does last forever, with frightening power even after thousands of years.

As for the Quads, although they look the same, the Macross F version is known as the Queadluun Rea.

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 07:44   Link #66
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Spoiler for End of SDF Macross:


I've noticed Macross 7 was kinda like Florida in terms of really old people taking an option of retiring there. Most were UN Spacy vets.

Macross 7 , the retirement fleet. lol

Last edited by 4Tran; 2008-05-13 at 08:04. Reason: Added spoiler tags.
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Old 2008-05-13, 10:12   Link #67
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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
in the first series the Zents are flabbergasted that the humans acutally repaired the ship becasue they can't fix there own when they break (which they DO).
Okay, so the human race was hammered half to hell by giant aliens in nearly broken ships.

Now, if that isn't a statement on zentradi quality then I don't know what is
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Old 2008-05-13, 10:18   Link #68
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Well, we never had concrete evidence stating Zents couldn't repair or maintain their own ships. Although Milia and a certain Ally Killer came back with the same battlesuit/battle pod over and over again after numerous battles. Moreover, the three Zent spies who infiltrated Macross were also shown to be able to repair their own tac-pods.

Certainly they know how to repair their crap.

Some tend to cite the 'broken glass' on Breetai's battleship as an example, but who the heck keeps a spare 'glass' on stand-by? Even modern naval vessels don't have that. And one should remember the Zent fleets were also very far away from their nearest supply joint. For the duration of Macross, Breetai was stationed near Earth and almost never had the opportunity to leave.

But otherwise, the quality of Zent weapons is guaranteed no matter when it was made

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 15:04   Link #69
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tak View Post
Well, we never had concrete evidence stating Zents couldn't repair or maintain their own ships. Although Milia and a certain Ally Killer came back with the same battlesuit/battle pod over and over again after numerous battles. Moreover, the three Zent spies who infiltrated Macross were also shown to be able to repair their own tac-pods.

Certainly they know how to repair their crap.
Fixing minor damage and routine feild repairs are different things then comprehensive rebuilding or repairing major battle damage. An aircraft maintainer can keep an F-22 running forward deployed, but he couldn't rebuild it or fix severe structural damage. The zents can obviously perform normal maintenance on there embarked mecha in order to keep them running and combat ready, but that's a different beast then rebuilding or fixing them after major battle damage.

Acutally I'm 99% sure it's stated that they have no real clue how allot of there stuff works and that this was done on purpose. Understanding of underlying concepts is not at all required to use or even perform crude repairs of a machine. Many of us can perform small repairs on our cars, but we can't replace a transmission or rebuild a blown engine block. After all the Zent's weapons were pretty much all built in giant automated factories (that themselves by the time of the Macross where starting to fail) which ought to be proof enough that none of them really understood how they worked so almost surely ruled out any complex high level maintenance.

All we really need to look at to see this fact is that even after thousands of years they use the exact same weapons no attempts to adapt, no feild modifications, no new models just slogging along with the same stuff they always had churned out by an increasingly dwindling supply of automated factories to and ever shrinking Zentradi fleet. The Zents were on the slow road to extinction before they encountered the UN.

Quote:
Some tend to cite the 'broken glass' on Breetai's battleship as an example, but who the heck keeps a spare 'glass' on stand-by? Even modern naval vessels don't have that. And one should remember the Zent fleets were also very far away from their nearest supply joint. For the duration of Macross, Breetai was stationed near Earth and almost never had the opportunity to leave.
Who leaves Broken glass just laying around there ship though... maybe it's not definitive proof, but the interior of the bloody flag ship looking rather ramshackle can't be totally dismissed either IMO.

Quote:
But otherwise, the quality of Zent weapons is guaranteed no matter when it was made

- Tak
Absurdly unlike there is no sane reason to think that protoculture factories all produced uniform quality let alone that this was maintained as they went without maintenance for thousands of years and began to break down.

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Originally Posted by Burner of Anime View Post
Okay, so the human race was hammered half to hell by giant aliens in nearly broken ships.

Now, if that isn't a statement on zentradi quality then I don't know what is
Yeah ohh... 5 million to 1 odds can even out quite a bit.

5 Million guys with rocks and sticks could killed one guy even if he had a machine gun and unlimited ammo.
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Old 2008-05-13, 15:38   Link #70
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Acutally I'm 99% sure it's stated that they have no real clue how allot of there stuff works and that this was done on purpose.
I've yet to see proof of that. Thing is, Zent personnel like Exsedol, basically a walking computer, would have exceeded the intelligence level of most humans. He frequently analyzed new findings and had absolutely no problems in identifying how existing technology works.

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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
After all the Zent's weapons were pretty much all built in giant automated factories (that themselves by the time of the Macross where starting to fail)...

All we really need to look at to see this fact is that even after thousands of years they use the exact same weapons no attempts to adapt, no feild modifications, no new models just slogging along with the same stuff they always had churned out by an increasingly dwindling supply of automated factories to and ever shrinking Zentradi fleet. The Zents were on the slow road to extinction before they encountered the UN.
Because there had been absolutely no need to upgrade their weapons, given what they had more than fulfilled their purpose. Their fleet was more than a match against the UN SPACY, and if Baldoza was a little more determined, the annihilation of mankind wasn't difficult to accomplish.

There is also absolutely no evidence to suggest their 'factories' were in a dire need to 'resupply'. Based on the comments of Exsedol and/or the comments of Breetai, there could be millions, if not billions of factories in existence. Oh, and btw, the factories do maintain themselves, and it is also suggested that new factories could be planted.

And I don't know where you even got the "Zents were on the slow road to extinction" came from. Since no Zent ever suggested their race was on a slow road to decay, or the confident comments of Breetai, who stated not only once that to make Zents impotent as a war machine was either unthinkable or impossible, I highly doubt 'extinction' besides contacting culture or losing an all-out war against the Supervision Army was planned.

Even by Space War I, the automated factories were still churning out additional fleets, the Zent fleet was growing, not dwindling. They are just being kept busy fighting another war.

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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
Who leaves Broken glass just laying around there ship though... maybe it's not definitive proof, but the interior of the bloody flag ship looking rather ramshackle can't be totally dismissed either IMO.
Er, they didn't leave "broken" glass just 'laying around the ship". They actually cleaned that up. Sure, the monitor is still broken, but no broken glass was 'laying around'.

The flagship did look rather ramshackle, but once again, they've not returned to any of their supply stations ever since they stationed near Earth orbit.

The SDF was itself pretty banged up for a long duration of the show if you noticed. But while the SDF can return to Earth for maintenance, the Zents could not, or chose not to. That is where I applaud the production staff for being consistent.

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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
Absurdly unlike there is no sane reason to think that protoculture factories all produced uniform quality let alone that this was maintained as they went without maintenance for thousands of years and began to break down.
It is well noted the automated factories do maintain themselves.

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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
Yeah ohh... 5 million to 1 odds can even out quite a bit.

5 Million guys with rocks and sticks could killed one guy even if he had a machine gun and unlimited ammo.
Now see, that is an easily identified sarcasm which I shall read, go 'ha ha' and promptly ignore.

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 16:14   Link #71
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Originally Posted by Tk3997 View Post
Absurdly unlike there is no sane reason to think that protoculture factories all produced uniform quality let alone that this was maintained as they went without maintenance for thousands of years and began to break down.
i think Zentradi grade weaponry are certified to work for indefinate period, under normal operation without maintanence until they encounter irrepairable battle damage, in which they go grab another one.

Sure it sounds absurd (I'm a product designer by trade! cost-to-operational life cycle! After market potential! ) but when we have space ships that can "fold" all over the universe, robotic planes and giants.

that's the lease "absurd" thing in this universe.
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Old 2008-05-13, 20:26   Link #72
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Well, for the record Tk, I should point out that the Quadlunn-Rau, for the most part, was seen in combat in atmosphere - a big round ball with arms and legs that depends on jets to maneuver or hover probably won't do quite as well in the maneuverability department as a Valkyrie in that case. And even then, they did a hell of a number on VF-1's, due to their incredible missile loadout. In space, they're probably quite a bit more effective where air resistance and gravity aren't big factors. The Quadlunn-Rea seems to have added that shoulder cannon to improve the direct-fire capability, and it compares very well with the current top-line prototype VF-25, even with FAST packs on it. I don't see this as being very inferior to human weapons at all.

Hell, human weapons for the most part aren't cracking Vajra shells to judge by how poorly the NUNS is doing, and it took a Zentradi weapon to kill this last Vajra as even Klein Klan's shoulder cannon at point-blank range didn't do more than put a crack in the shell. In comparison, a weapon that had literally been lying around for thousands of years in an asteroid belt not only killed it, but survived the ensuing explosion without a visible scratch while Alto's VF-25 was apparently disabled and a little crispy afterwards.

Don't forget that Zentradi ships DO have large cannons like those used to bombard Earth; the same type of gun that the Macross used time and again to one-shot opposing Zentradi ships. And they had millions of ships with those - the humans' best weapon for anti-capship warfare was of the same type of design as the Zentradi's... and we've yet to see the humans improving on those. Human technology, from what we can tell, has focused mostly on kinetic weapons and missiles, along with drone weapons like the Ghosts... which are sufficient against the Zentradi, but apparently not as much against the Vajra, who are (at least apparently) light-years ahead of the humans in electronic warfare.

The whole 'Zentradi can't repair stuff' thing is, IIRC, derived more from Robotech than Macross. That 'lack of repair abilities' was enforced by the Robotech Masters there, to keep the Zentraedi from overthrowing them.
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Old 2008-05-13, 20:59   Link #73
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Quite true. The Queadluun Rea is, for the most part, may not be as maneuverable as Valkyries, but on the other hand, the Queadluuns traditionally sport far more basic firepower than their human counterpart. In addition to its ridiculously numerous missile load-out. I take it as some sort of freakish balance

Besides, why upgrade? Can anyone prove, with definite evidence that human conventional weapons ARE better than their Zent counterparts? Absolutely not. In fact, UN SPACY is still learning from their newfound allies.

As for Zent weapons, a good fellow once said this regarding an AK-47, "you want to destroy an AK-47? run it over with a tank!"

With that, I present "you wanna destroy a Zentradi gun? Run it over with a Monster!"

Yes, Zent guns are THAT good.

On the other hand, Robotech, its so craptastic I really don't want to deal with it. Cannot stand how the show 'manage' to answer its own questions then suddenly forget about it. Its a hastily re-arranged franchise, that is both poorly connected and an insult to our intelligence.

The moment I found out Protoculture became 'an energy source' in Robotech, I had to devour an entire bottle of vodka to suppress my urge to pull a 911 on Harmony Gold...

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 21:11   Link #74
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Quite true. The Queadluun Rea is, for the most part, may not be as maneuverable as Valkyries, but on the other hand, the Queadluuns traditionally sport far more basic firepower than their human counterpart. In addition to its ridiculously numerous missile load-out. I take it as some sort of freakish balance

Besides, why upgrade? Can anyone prove, with definite evidence that human conventional weapons ARE better than their Zent counterparts? Absolutely not. In fact, UN SPACY is still learning from their newfound allies.
Queadlunns also seem to have some good armor - shots that would've riddled a Glaug full of holes or blown it up were shrugged off by Milia in her first duel with Max - maybe this is where the UN Spacy got their ideas for the Super Valkyries from, after seeing the Queadlunn-Rau in action. They both have great missile loadouts, extra armor on the chest, more guns than standard Valkyries, as well as big thruster packs for extra speed and maneuverability in space... whereas in atmosphere, standard Valkyries seem favored, since they're more aerodynamic.

The major advantage the UN Spacy seems to have is that they can construct Macross-style cannons, which is a capability the Zents seem to have had reduced over the years due to the Supervision Army, from what I recall reading, destroying their factories which specialized in this sorta thing. Outside of that, Zent weapons appear to be prized still - look at how Ozma chewed Alto out for not only getting his VF ripped up but also for possibly damaging a precious weapon like the liquid-plasma gun.

I suspect that a certain busty blue-haired Meltran will be using THAT particular field piece in the next few episodes.

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Originally Posted by Tak View Post
As for Zent weapons, a good fellow once said this regarding an AK-47, "you want to destroy an AK-47? run it over with a tank!"

With that, I present "you wanna destroy a Zentradi gun? Run it over with a Monster!"

Yes, Zent guns are THAT good.
I don't know if a Monster could've killed that liquid-plasma gun that Alto did his best to blow up in episode 4 - it survived the explosion better than his VT did. Maybe if you'd thrust it into a ship's engines or fried it with reaction weapons... but still, there's something to be said for robust weapons that work, period - one reason that IMI does good business in guns; they work in adverse conditions without an insane amount of maintenance, and they're cheap in bulk.

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On the other hand, Robotech, its so craptastic I really don't want to deal with it. Cannot stand how the show 'manage' to answer its own questions then suddenly forget about it. Its a hastily re-arranged franchise, that is both poorly connected and an insult to our intelligence.

The moment I found out Protoculture became 'an energy source' in Robotech, I had to devour an entire bottle of vodka to suppress my urge to pull a 911 on Harmony Gold...

- Tak
Eh, Robotech wasn't bad for its time... and for better or worse, a LOT of us got our introduction to anime with that, and Mazinger, and what turned into Voltron. Or Astro Boy, which is how I started along with Robotech. And they did keep the Macross arc fairly intact, including deaths of major characters like Focker... something that wouldn't have been expected in most western animation without some sort of reset button being used later.

It certainly did better in meshing together completely unrelated series than Lucas did with Star Wars Episode I in comparison to Episode 4... :P Yes, I'm one of those former SW fans who felt the first series was a travesty, after building up the mystical part of the Force and then making the Jedi so... oh, midichloriantastic.
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Old 2008-05-13, 21:20   Link #75
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tak View Post

The moment I found out Protoculture became 'an energy source' in Robotech, I had to devour an entire bottle of vodka to suppress my urge to pull a 911 on Harmony Gold...

- Tak
I m with you in that, we can still do it
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Old 2008-05-13, 22:09   Link #76
Tak
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The major advantage the UN Spacy seems to have is that they can construct Macross-style cannons, which is a capability the Zents seem to have had reduced over the years due to the Supervision Army, from what I recall reading, destroying their factories which specialized in this sorta thing.
Pretty much the only thing Supervision Army was capable of ridding was the Zents' capacity in producing reactionary weapons. Most of Zent battleships were still armed with a main gun with equal, if not higher caliber than the SDF-1 Macross. That is not even counting battle-station weapons, which pretty much puts the Grand Cannon to shame.

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I suspect that a certain busty blue-haired Meltran will be using THAT particular field piece in the next few episodes.
It looks like a finger-triggered weapon, and not a shoulder piece. Unless she intends to modify it as her new shoulder-toy, Queads cannot hold rifle-type weaponry since they've only got 3 fingers

Besides, she'd have to fight Alto for that

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 22:22   Link #77
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Besides, she'd have to fight Alto for that - Tak
He can't win, no matter how they decide it. He's out-gunned and out-classed in a dog fight, she's got six metric tons on him outside a mech, and the loli bites.
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Old 2008-05-13, 22:43   Link #78
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Originally Posted by Tak View Post
It looks like a finger-triggered weapon, and not a shoulder piece. Unless she intends to modify it as her new shoulder-toy, Queads cannot hold rifle-type weaponry since they've only got 3 fingers

Besides, she'd have to fight Alto for that

- Tak
Fight? And I think she might be able to handle it - given it's Zentradi tech, and I'd suspect she could make it work with three fingers.

Besides, she's a) his superior officer, b) she can crush him in Meltlandi form should she choose to, and c) her loli-form defeats his trap-form. Plus, the way things are going, SHE could be the twist to the relationship. :P She combines the loli appeal of Ranka with Sheryl's bustiness and impulsiveness. And did I forget to mention she's Meltlandi?
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Old 2008-05-13, 22:46   Link #79
Tak
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And did I forget to mention she's Meltlandi?
Exploiting my lust for Meltlandis is an unfair assertion in this discussion.

Shame on you!

- Tak
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Old 2008-05-13, 23:41   Link #80
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Exploiting my lust for Meltlandis is an unfair assertion in this discussion.

Shame on you!

- Tak
Given how Alto has stared at Klein in the past, I think she'd be talking advantage of the fact that she's a Meltlandi if it comes down to getting the gun or not. maybe he has an oneesama fetish? I don't really recall Alto staring at girls very much, and Klein made him do it twice. Girls seem to annoy him or make him feel protective... Except for Klein.

Maybe...

P.S.: Blame Milia for my own thing for Meltlandi... and for Klein-sama.
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