Valkyrie Colors

I've been messing around with Photoshop and I've come up with these color schemes for some of the famous Macross Valkyries. These are only first attempts so not all of them are that good, but I am particularly proud of the green and white VF-1J.

 

VF-1J Valkyrie

 

VF-1S Strike Valkyrie (Battroid Mode)

VF-19A Excalibur

 VF-1J Battroid

Gundam AGE Episode 15

Gundam AGE Episode 15:

Those Tears Fall in Space

It's been a somewhat long journey from October 9, 2011 to this, the last episode of Flit's arc. It is here that we finally learn who the mysterious Unknown Enemy are... they're martians. No not the ones from War of the Worlds or Mars Attacks or any of that other stuff, but humans who had emigrated to a group of colonies which had been built in the Mars Sphere, which is a fairly new term for Gundam as we usually just deal with the Earth Sphere. 

For those who might be kind WTF on what a Mars or Earth Sphere is, it is basically everything orbiting Earth and its five Lagrange Points, or in Mars' case, the martian Lagrange points. As for what a Lagrange point is, go look it up on Wikipedia, I aint your papa!  :)

These martian colonists, who call themselves the Vegans, were abandoned out at Mars by the Federation (why are we not surprised?), or so explains Yark Dole, when the Diva  crew confronts him inside Ambat's control center. 

It seems that some kinda cosmic rays produced by Mars' electromagnetic field or something caused a disease amongst the martian colonist's population. The Federation then abandoned them and they were forced to survive on their own. Now they have returned to the Earthsphere to claim Earth for themselves. How spending 14 years blowing up colonies and such is supposed to help them achieve such a goal is a little confusing at this point but it's nice to know who the UE finally are, even though I think it's a tad early for that revelation. Maybe if this was a more linear show, but AGE's nature seems to be playing this off well enough for now.

Other things in this episode: Flit's palpable rage is nice, giving the character a bit of an edge that he's been lacking. Would he have really shot Yark if Grodek hadn't done it first? Well , earlier he did try to beam saber the guy 

so I'm thinking he might actually have done it. But Grodek technically had the prior claim so he saves Flit the burden. 

I also like how immediately afterward, Yark's son comes in and sees his murdered father and Grodek just gets up in his face and is like, "Yeah, I'm the motherfrakker who shot your dad for revenge. Welcome to my world." 

I'm sure Grodek knew that with this kid seeing what he's done, that he'll have to accept the consequences of his actions as the UE have been made to feel theirs.

Flit's fight against Yark's Defurze mobile suit aka T-Rex Arms was a little disappointing but also goes to show how pumped up Flit is on anger.

Largan Drace actually not dying was pleasantly surprising. I'm glad AGE is avoiding at least a few tropes. Wuulf also isn't dead but there's yet another arc, so we'll see.

Also, the mention of this Sir Ezelcant, who's supposed to be the leader of the Vegans, has me a bit intrigued, as I want to know what this master plan of his is that's still kind of vague.

Emily and Flit also miss an opportunity to talk but I'm pretty sure she heard him mention Yurin. I have to wonder how this is going to affect their marriage in the future?

And now, the finale. In the aftermath of the Ambat operation, Grodek finally lets himself be arrested. During his court martial, he states emphatically that he threatened the Diva crew into going along with his plan and basically puts all the blame on himself. He's sentenced as a traitor and locked up and the Feddies take all the credit for Operation: Ambat Capture and it becomes know as the War of Bat Extermination. Um, what? WTF? The frak kinda name is that? Lastly Millais comments that this attitude of the Feddies' is what has caused this situation in the first place. 

We close the episode with a shot of some Vegan superstructure in Mars orbit and a new Vegan ship heading to the earthsphere with two new Vegan characters that comment about Ezelcant's plan.

All in all, this was definitely one of the best episodes of AGE so far, following on from the last episode and keeping the pace going. And having just watched episode 16, I can now say that I'm extremely confident in AGE's future. So to all the haters and trolls: STFU (shut the frak up) and peace out!  :)