by the fans for the fans

Ok,

I want to continue the argument started at Robotech.com, but I want to be somewhere OTHER than Robotech.com or Palladium cause, well, I don't play well with others. I cannot state it any plainer than to substitute SLMH for Protoculture is completely and totally asinine. Tommy Yune, instead of thinking OUTSIDE the box, decided to pull a Jack McKinney. It doesn't HAVE to be an either/or issue.

Force of Arms
HWR-Monster Crewmen: Reflex furnace up to power. Balance gyro's activated. All systems are ready Captain.
...................
Grand Cannon Crewman: Energy converter is now fully active. Reflex power modules at 100%. All systems standing by with 20 seconds to firing and counting.

The Robotech Masters
The Narrator: Workers sit at their benches completing electronic circuits. They add Protoculture chips to Robotech circuitry.

Khyron's Revenge
Factory Control: Make ready units 152 through 158. Proto-bolt adjustments and laser-bond processes.
..............................................
Khyron: I'm getting high reflex activity readings. I will have that protoculture chamber.

Broken Heart
Zentraedi crewman of stolen HWR-Monster talking to Khyron: Sir, the protoculture level is zero.
....................
Azonia (indicating her powered down Glaug): No protocultur left.
Khyron: Without their protoculture, we're entirely at their mercy.

Seasons Greetings
Khyron: How are the reflex furnaces? Are they working yet?
Zentraedi Tech: Not yet Lord Khyron and it does not look as if they will until we get some protoculture soon.
Khyron: What is the status of the main reactors?
Tech: If we had a few days they could be functional, but takeoff would still be impossible. We are without power from the main reactor because we lack protoculture.
............
Industrial Sector Comptroller: Protoculture Maintenance Group Twenty-Eight report to Warehouse Three Level Two.
......camera pans across truck hauling protoculture storage matrix..............
............
Human Warehouse Contractor: Lets see. We have three power condensers for reflex engines...blah, blah, the rest is lost in the background, blah

Dana's Story
The Robotech Elders: The first trans-signal is of the area where the highes readings of Proto-activity have been recorded and it would appear to be unguarded.
...................................
Robotech Master: You may draw additional Protoculture from the Proto-Furnace only if needed for success.

Southern Cross
Unnamed Government Bureaucrat: Citizens of Earth, a dire emergency confronts us. The renegade flagship of the Robotech Masters has appeared in stationary orbit 30,000 kilometers above our planet. Communications from within the flagship have been intercepted and decoded. These renegades are descendants of Zor, the originator of the science of Robotechnology. They are invaders intent on plundering the world's supply of Protoculture.
.............................
Unnamed Officer: Quiet all of you. This decision has been made at the highest levels of the government and once policy is set, its our job to carry it out. Believe me, I respect all of your opinions, however, I'm sure Headquarters has a much broader picture of the danger we face. We will follow the orders we've been given. What remains of the Protoculture is our concern. It must be protected at all costs, even to the point of sacrificing lives if necessary.

Metal Fire
The Narrator: 15th Squad's observations supported the belief that the Robotech Masters had come to the Earth in search of the last known supply of Protoculture.

A New Recruit
Supreme Commander Leonard: Zor's flashes of memory tell us one thing: Earth is the remaining source of all Protoculture. If we can believe it, then this is the sole reason the Robotech Masters have not destroyed the Earth. They will continue attacking until they have accumulated every supply of Protoculture on this planet.

Triumvirate
The Narrator: Against the advice of General Emerson, Supreme Commander Leonard of the Southern Cross forces has elected to throw an all-out frontal assault at the enemy fleet in an effort to thwart the alien's designs on Earth's dwindling supply of Protoculture.
...................
Supreme Commander Leonard: Proto-engineering has completed the first consigment of the new Armored Gyro Assault Choppers, henceforth designated as Ajax.

Clone Chamber
Marie Crystal: Update from the First Attack Wing. The survivors of our Bio-Engineering sections are initiating repairs on the Advanced Lunar Chemical Engineering or ALuCE-1 as its designated. They feel certain that a complete program of resource replenishment will have to carried out to make the station operational again.

Mind Games
Unnamed Spartas Hovertank Mechanic: This conversion mode Proto-generator is shot, but I think I've got time to repair it.

The Fortress
Scott: This must be the central central powercore for the whole fortress......That looks interesting. Ah, I thought so, the main control matrix.
The Regess: Control matrix breached. Reflex furnace overload.

Fact: Frostbite conclusively shows Rook hauling around a GROCERY CART loaded with Protoculture Cells taken from a city that had been evacuated a full day BEFORE the Invid Invasion. Why the hell would there be cells in a grocery store if the stuff wasn't as common as dirt to run every vehicle/powerplant on Earth?

Its not like the UEF wouldn't have a g$ddamn MOUNTAIN of the stuff following The Rain of Death. Even if only 1% of the 4 million Zentraedi wrecks were salvageable, it would be more than enough to fuel the Earth for a LONG time.

The simplest and most elegant answers are always preferable. If I had control of the franchise, I would rule the FoL is a Haydon piece of Bio-Technology that allowed them to refine SLMH more easily than compressing it. When they moved on, it was left behind where the Invid found it. Later Zor discovers it and the whole basis for Robotechnology is that of leftover Haydon super-technology. Voila, problem solved.

BEFORE I START GETTING INTO THIS, IF YOU DON'T GET ALONG AT RT.COM, OR PALLADIUM, IS THERE A CHANCE YOU MIGHT BE PUSHING A WRONG IDEA? I MEAN, IF FANS AGAINST YOU HEAR AS WELL, WILL YOU DISAPPEAR? MAYBE BECAUSE YOU JUST A SOUTHERN CROSS PURIST.

HEHEHE

MEMO1DOMINION wrote:

BEFORE I START GETTING INTO THIS, IF YOU DON'T GET ALONG AT RT.COM, OR PALLADIUM, IS THERE A CHANCE YOU MIGHT BE PUSHING A WRONG IDEA?

No, what I mean by 'I don't play well with others' is that, at my age, I'm tired of having to re-explain things over and over again to people that refuse to acknowledge what the Tv series says and doesn't say.

I MEAN, IF FANS AGAINST YOU HEAR AS WELL, WILL YOU DISAPPEAR? MAYBE BECAUSE YOU JUST A SOUTHERN CROSS PURIST.

Bah. I'm not a Southern Cross Purist. I just like both Southern Cross and The Masters War for different reasons.

I like your idea Brook, but spare me and tell me what SLMH is?

SIGHUP wrote:

I like your idea Brook, but spare me and tell me what SLMH is?

Stabilized Liquid Metallic Hydrogen, a theoretical type of solid hydrogen. Tommy Yune told Palladium, who subsequently published it, that none of the Earth mecha from the 1st or 2nd Generation use Protoculture.

Metallic hydrogen

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen

Applications

Nuclear power

One method of producing nuclear fusion, called inertial confinement fusion, involves aiming laser beams at pellets of hydrogen isotopes. The increased understanding of the behavior of hydrogen in extreme conditions could help to increase energy yields.


Fuel

It may be possible to produce substantial quantities of metallic hydrogen for practical purposes. The existence has been theorized[citation needed] of a form called 'Metastable Metallic Hydrogen', (abbreviated MSMH) which would not immediately revert to ordinary hydrogen upon the release of pressure.

In addition, 'MSMH' would make an efficient fuel itself and also a clean one, with only water as an end product. Nine times as dense as standard hydrogen, it would give off considerable energy when reverting to standard hydrogen. Burned more quickly, it could be a propellant with up to five times the efficiency of liquid H2/O2, the current Space Shuttle fuel.[18] Unfortunately, the 'Lawrence Livermore' experiments produced metallic hydrogen too briefly to determine whether or not metastability is possible.



In science fiction

In the role-playing game Eclipse Phase, metallic hydrogen is mentioned as a spacecraft propellant, especially for landing on planetary bodies and short range orbital transfers.

If I had control of the franchise, I would rule the FoL is a Haydon piece of Bio-Technology that allowed them to refine SLMH more easily than compressing it.

It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't address all the other uses and attributes of Protoculture, for instance as a food stuff or bio-tech agent etc.

treiz wrote:

It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't address all the other uses and attributes of Protoculture, for instance as a food stuff or bio-tech agent etc.

Actually, it does. Think about how many different applications Petroleum actually has (granted, none of them are an actual foodstuff, but its very useful in the production of fertilizers and pesticides to help in the growing of plant matter). The same sort of 'reasoning' could be applied to the sap (fruit pulp, whatever) of the FoL: its an organic compound that has multiple applications. I'm also in favour of applying Clarke's Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It doesn't necessarily have to follow our modern conception of chemistry/physics per se, just be believable enough and clearly NOT violate some fundamental principle.

I'm of the opinion that, unlike the novels, the FoL was growing every damned place Zor could put it (since its a 'super-parasite') but when the Zentraedi rebelled originally, they started going around wiping out planets that had been setup as farm worlds. Eventually, they drove the original Robotech civilization into the ground (killing Zor in the process) and themselves got destroyed (basically) by their own actions. The Masters and The DoZ were the survivors of the galactic apocalypse.

TRUE.

Think about how many different applications Petroleum actually has

Hey, that's my line...