Super Macross Mecha Fun Time Discussion Thread!

[aurance]

When they say “marines” in Macross, are they meaning strictly seaborne troops, delivered by the UN Navy? Or are they including spaceborne forces? If meaning the former, why would they even still exist?

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, aurance said:

When they say “marines” in Macross, are they meaning strictly seaborne troops, delivered by the UN Navy? Or are they including spaceborne forces? If meaning the former, why would they even still exist?

So... that's a bit of a rabbit hole in its own right since there are seemingly two separate Marine Corps.

 

When the then-newly inaugurated Earth Unification (UN) Government officially commenced business in February 2001, one of the first things they did was to establish the Earth UN Forces to reorganize and integrate the various national militaries of Earth into a cohesive fighting force for planetary defense.  The Earth UN Forces originally had four branches: the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps.  These four conventional forces were exactly what you'd expect given their names.  We know relatively little about them, as the story doesn't focus on any of them directly and they show up infrequently in the print lore.  However, we know a few details like that the Daedalus-class was developed in large part with the Marines in mind (originally the US Marines who formed the backbone of the UN Marines) and that they had an interest in VFs as a replacement for aging VTOL/STOVL jets used in close air support to have their own VF-0 variant (the VF-0C).  

The fifth branch, the Spacy (space force) was added two years later in 2003.

 

After the First Space War, things get a little bit weirder and a little bit harder to explain.

The New Unification Government takes over for the destroyed Earth Unification Government in 2010 and at some unknown date in 2010 or early 2011 someone in power makes the decision to have portions of the Spacy spun off as separate branches of service: the Spacy Air Force and Spacy Marine Corps.

Exactly what the organizational division of responsibilities there is is unclear at best.  As far as I am aware, they have never been properly explained.  They first appear in the This is Animation book for the Macross Plus OVA in Variable Fighters Aero Report, with the Spacy Air Force subsequently appearing in Macross Plus and the Spacy Marine Corps in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta.  The Spacy Marine Corps seems obvious enough.  They've got to be ground forces and related air support attached to/transported by the Spacy's fleets.  The Spacy Air Force makes less sense.  Presumably they're the non-carrier aviation arm of the space forces... but that seems to leave their role overlapping with that of the Air Force, since the one base of theirs that we see directly is planetside.

 

 

With respect to the "why do they still exist?" part... if Isamu's service record is any indication, there is a fair amount of inter-service mobility (more aligned to the JSDF) in the New UN Forces and there is still some semblance of a blue water navy left given that Isamu serves a brief stint about the UNN Enterprise in 2035.  

Edited 1 hour ago by Seto Kaiba