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Macross II .....possibility of it existing in Macross?


Dax415

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Hi guys, like many others.... loved quite a bit of the mecha eye candy when I first saw it.  Now that we have even further macross shows, I kept wondering how well ,,,,,or perhaps....not so well.... Macross II would do coexisting in the macross lore.  What I was thinking,,,, is that it was actually a pre mega road colony that settled on a planet closely resembling earth in a star system similar to our own.   The fleet.... composed of a SDF class class ship as well as numerous zentran ships eventually get cut off from the rest of humanity.  Wanting a truely new start and to show case how rich earths original culture was.....they simply set out to rebuild the new planet as earth once was before the war.  Which would explain the construction and eventual prolonged use of the Minmei defense system and original style valkyrie mecha against rogue zentraedi fleets.  At least that would be the gist of what I was thinking.  I do realize there are further differences ....such as zentran vs meltran...... but I figured somebody more creative could fill that in, lol.

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1 hour ago, Dax415 said:

Now that we have even further macross shows, I kept wondering how well ,,,,,or perhaps....not so well.... Macross II would do coexisting in the macross lore.

The most popular fan theory for how Macross II: Lovers Again fits into the main/ongoing Macross timeline is as a work of in-universe fiction... a speculative-fiction sequel to the 2031 pseudo-documentary drama Do You Remember Love?.

One of the reasons this idea gained traction is that a lot of the Macross II soundtrack was reused for Macross 7, so music from the OVA is EVERYWHERE in 2045.  It's the chart-topping music on the Galaxy Network, the indie bands on City-7 play it, and the Minmay Attack girl from the OVA's first episode even puts in an appearance or two.  Even the Jamming Birds perform songs from it.

(This idea gains a bit more traction from books like Master File implying that there were other docu-dramas like DYRL? that came before the 2031 movie.)

Edited by Seto Kaiba
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On 4/2/2021 at 6:57 PM, Dax415 said:

Hi guys, like many others.... loved quite a bit of the mecha eye candy when I first saw it.  Now that we have even further macross shows, I kept wondering how well ,,,,,or perhaps....not so well.... Macross II would do coexisting in the macross lore.  What I was thinking,,,, is that it was actually a pre mega road colony that settled on a planet closely resembling earth in a star system similar to our own.   The fleet.... composed of a SDF class class ship as well as numerous zentran ships eventually get cut off from the rest of humanity.  Wanting a truely new start and to show case how rich earths original culture was.....they simply set out to rebuild the new planet as earth once was before the war.  Which would explain the construction and eventual prolonged use of the Minmei defense system and original style valkyrie mecha against rogue zentraedi fleets.  At least that would be the gist of what I was thinking.  I do realize there are further differences ....such as zentran vs meltran...... but I figured somebody more creative could fill that in, lol.

It could, 

My pet idea to shoe horn the series into the main timeline is that M2 takes place on in a colonial system trapped by fold faults for decades.  The only ships to effectively navigate the faults are the PC equipped ships with actual fold quartz and not the fold carbon common in most human made ships.  So when the Mardook arrive in their PC era ships they traverse the faults relatively easily.

It would explain why the mecha look like derivatives of the original designs as the colony didn't have the engineering expertise found in the federal system.  So their versions were simply derived from what they had when they arrived.  The Macross class ship they had was an escort to the original emigration fleet.  If you look at the environment designs of the cities they look very much like repurposed colony ships that landed on the planet.

To finally bring it into the continuity, they could animate a sequence with an NMC carrier arriving shortly after the events of the series to "find" them.

That is how I'd do it.

Edited by Zinjo
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When MII was first introduced, it was the official true sequel and actually happened. After Kawamori got back into Macross7 it was retconed to be in universe fiction. At the Macross Museum Kawamori stated that it was a parallel universe. Now, the most current published timelines include MII as actually happening.

Puttting this all together, I believe that the MII anime as shown, was created in the M7 era, based on future information obtained by time travel by the staff of the Macross  Museum. The actual events have not been shown yet, the Characters, Mecha and locations are all what someone in the M7 era created based on what was probably inaccurate and brief verbal information from an unintentional time traveler.

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46 minutes ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

When MII was first introduced, it was the official true sequel and actually happened. After Kawamori got back into Macross7 it was retconed to be in universe fiction. At the Macross Museum Kawamori stated that it was a parallel universe. Now, the most current published timelines include MII as actually happening.

Except for that first sentence, this is wrong.

When Macross II was first introduced, it was THE Macross sequel... as in, literally the only one. 

After Kawamori was enticed back to do Macross Plus and Macross 7, it was rebranded as a "parallel world" timeline separate from that of Kawamori's Macross sequels.  That news was dispensed in a few places like a note at the end of the OVA's novelization.  Officially, at least as far as Big West goes, it seems to retain this "parallel world" status.

Some printed materials from the late 90's into the 2000s list Macross II on the same timeline as all of the other Macross stories.

Kawamori's view is more wooly.  His take, from the Macross Museum, is that he doesn't really believe in canon and that all Macross stories are stand-alone and equally valid.  In the past, he'd opined various things like all Macross stories being dramatizations of a "true" Macross history that amount to much the same thing.

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58 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Kawamori's view is more wooly.  His take, from the Macross Museum, is that he doesn't really believe in canon and that all Macross stories are stand-alone and equally valid.  In the past, he'd opined various things like all Macross stories being dramatizations of a "true" Macross history that amount to much the same thing.

Which is honestly, how all scifi universes should be. Look at all the people that get rankled because Star Trek or Star Wars takes liberties or seemingly forgets elements from previous movies. Kawamori's "none of it is actually what happened" is a perfect way to deal with this. 

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During Frontier's first run I got excited when I misread a fansub and thought Grace had connected the Macross II fleet as part of the fold network (immediately realized it was the cursed Macross 11 fleet that has Kaifun & Fire Bomber American). So yeah, with Developments like Windemere, the SDF Global & fold faults, it'd be easy enough to have a scenario where one of the colony fleets for some reason thought their Macross was the original, their planet was Earth, and stumbled into an equally delusional Marduk fleet.

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4 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Except for that first sentence, this is wrong.

When Macross II was first introduced, it was THE Macross sequel... as in, literally the only one.

You are basically disagreeing just to agree with him, you know.

However, some context: there were numerous non-anime productions developed between the release of DYRL and MII.  They include but aren't limited to publications and video games.

... and this is, of course, ignoring the existence of Flashback 2012, which is more-or-less a sequel.

 

Back to the original topic: Macross II is officially part of Macross.  How it fits in is anyone's guess.  As Kawamori-san has described each and every Macross production as an in-universe interpretation of historical fact (like "Saving Private Ryan" is to WWII), we can assume that something like what we saw in MII occurred in the "real" Macross universe.  However, it's accuracy is up for debate (like how Bodoruza's 'cactus' flagship was actually a Beginhill class ship draped in holograms).

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4 hours ago, sketchley said:

You are basically disagreeing just to agree with him, you know.

Let's just say I'm gunshy about what happened the last time someone ran with completely the wrong idea about Macross II's status and validity.  

I'm sure you remember why.  The mods sure haven't forgotten. :wacko:

 

4 hours ago, sketchley said:

However, some context: there were numerous non-anime productions developed between the release of DYRL and MII.  They include but aren't limited to publications and video games.

... and this is, of course, ignoring the existence of Flashback 2012, which is more-or-less a sequel.

Flash Back 2012 is more an orphaned epilogue presented as a separate "extra feature".

Novelizations and such aside, the only in-continuity narratives I can recall between DYRL? and II are ones that explicitly tie-into IIMacross 2036 and Eternal Love Song.

 

4 hours ago, sketchley said:

However, it's accuracy is up for debate (like how Bodoruza's 'cactus' flagship was actually a Beginhill class ship draped in holograms).

Within the alternate context of DYRL? as an in-universe movie, anyway... there have been later stories that presented Boddole Zer's movie mobile fortress as being a real ship class like the second Frontier movie and VF-X.

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1 hour ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

Yeah, I agree with what you are saying, different words with same conclusion.

Well, not quite... but the important bit is that Macross II has never officially been in-universe fiction like DYRL?.  That's just a popular fan theory based on the aforementioned cameos of characters and music in Macross 7.  Officially, it's a "parallel world" timeline and has been since the 90's, though Kawamori's stance is "Canon? What canon?".

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10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Let's just say I'm gunshy about what happened the last time someone ran with completely the wrong idea about Macross II's status and validity.  

I'm sure you remember why.  The mods sure haven't forgotten. :wacko:

Yeah...there are some battles that are just not worth it. I feel for you, bro. 

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, not quite... but the important bit is that Macross II has never officially been in-universe fiction like DYRL?.  That's just a popular fan theory based on the aforementioned cameos of characters and music in Macross 7.  Officially, it's a "parallel world" timeline and has been since the 90's, though Kawamori's stance is "Canon? What canon?".

The only cannon I know of in Macross are the big booms mounted on the SDF-1 :D

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10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Well, not quite... but the important bit is that Macross II has never officially been in-universe fiction like DYRL?.  That's just a popular fan theory based on the aforementioned cameos of characters and music in Macross 7.  Officially, it's a "parallel world" timeline and has been since the 90's, though Kawamori's stance is "Canon? What canon?".

In this case, it may be helpful to divide it into what BigWest considers the status of Macross II, and what Kawamori thinks. I think they are not the same.

 

For Big West they consider it a completely valid part of the main timeline. Kawamori does not agree, and thinks it belongs somewhere else where fewer people can see it.

Edited by Bariaburu Faita
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23 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Except for that first sentence, this is wrong.

When Macross II was first introduced, it was THE Macross sequel... as in, literally the only one. 

After Kawamori was enticed back to do Macross Plus and Macross 7, it was rebranded as a "parallel world" timeline separate from that of Kawamori's Macross sequels.  That news was dispensed in a few places like a note at the end of the OVA's novelization.  Officially, at least as far as Big West goes, it seems to retain this "parallel world" status.

Some printed materials from the late 90's into the 2000s list Macross II on the same timeline as all of the other Macross stories.

Kawamori's view is more wooly.  His take, from the Macross Museum, is that he doesn't really believe in canon and that all Macross stories are stand-alone and equally valid.  In the past, he'd opined various things like all Macross stories being dramatizations of a "true" Macross history that amount to much the same thing.

So, it's like the same with Macross 2036 or True Love Song.

Edited by Old_Nash
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1 hour ago, Bariaburu Faita said:

In this case, it may be helpful to divide it into what BigWest considers the status of Macross II, and what Kawamori thinks. I think they are not the same.

It is, yes... but neither of them have the views you claim they do.

Big West officially considers Macross II: Lovers Again (and by extension its tie-in games Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song) to be a "parallel world"/alternate universe setting.

Kawamori officially doesn't believe in the idea of "canon" and considers all Macross titles including Macross II: Lovers Again to be equally-valid stand-alone stories that dramatize the events of some "true" history.

Neither Big West nor Kawamori think Macross II "belongs somewhere else where fewer people can see it".  The idea that Big West and/or Kawamori disapproved of Macross II was a toxic, baseless rumor that caused no small amount of fighting on these boards and elsewhere.  Big West demonstrably included Macross II and its video-game tie-ins in material that was put together during and after Macross 7, Mikimoto put references to it in Macross 7 Trash and Macross the First, etc. etc.

 

49 minutes ago, Old_Nash said:

So, it's like the same with Macross 2036 or True Love Song.

Yeah.  They're part of the same parallel world setting Macross II is in Big West's view.

(Though there have been one or two publications like Macross Ace that inadvertently put Macross II in the same timeline with the rest of Macross, with an incorrect date.)

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10 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Kawamori officially doesn't believe in the idea of "canon" and considers all Macross titles including Macross II: Lovers Again to be equally-valid stand-alone stories that dramatize the events of some "true" history.

So, is his view that all of what we've seen of Macross is just dramatized events?  Do we need to subliminally put "dramatic re-enactment" on all scenes of everything?

I never posted about it, but I was watching the conclusion of Delta again recently.  It was at that scene where Freyja is falling through the air after Walkure manages to get Mikumo to break free of the mind control.  There's a shot where she sort of rotates around, and there's fighter planes doing their thing behind her and explosions and stuff, and then Hayate pulls up like he's pulling a car up to a curb.  Then the scene just transitions to her and Hayate standing in the cockpit.

It very much came across as the kind of scene you'd see in an 80s movie with an actor standing in front of a green screen or rear projection.  It wasn't taking advantage of animation at all.  It was very much framed like an actor in front of some SFX.

And I started wondering, was this just an awkward framing choice because of how difficult it would be to add verisimilitude to Freyja's action and motion in this scene along with needing Hayate to pick her up without spending a lot of animation time and money on it?  Or was this a conscious choice to frame it like this as a tell that Macross Delta wasn't a "real" event but instead was just a film?

 

Edited by GabrielV
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1 hour ago, GabrielV said:

And I started wondering, was this just an awkward framing choice because of how difficult it would be to add verisimilitude to Freyja's action and motion in this scene along with needing Hayate to pick her up without spending a lot of animation time and money on it?  Or was this a conscious choice to frame it like this as a tell that Macross Delta wasn't a "real" event but instead was just a film?

Little of column A, little of column B?

Honestly the dramatized event angle works for Macross as I highly doubt singing would be as powerful in the 'real world'.

A decent example even in anime I think is in Gundam Seed cause I remember Lacus trying to pull a Minmay with a more realistic result.

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5 hours ago, GabrielV said:

So, is his view that all of what we've seen of Macross is just dramatized events? 

At the very least, that is how Kawamori chooses to explain things like Macross's "broad strokes" approach to inter-series continuity, multiple versions of a given story and the changes between versions, zeerust, most examples of art evolution, and the occasional Word of God moment like redefining the significance of the VF-X2 coup attempt.

 

5 hours ago, GabrielV said:

Do we need to subliminally put "dramatic re-enactment" on all scenes of everything?

I don't think so.

Kawamori's views are his own, while Big West takes a somewhat (but not too much) firmer view of things like continuity.

As to the awkward framing choices in Delta... I don't think there's anything more to that than just having done a very poor job with the action choreography, which is a problem that dogs the show's entire run.

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10年以上もパラレルワールドとして紹介されていた本作だが、『マクロスF』終了後の2009年には複数の媒体で『ゼロ』、『超時空要塞マクロス』、『プラス』、『7』、『F』、『II』まで統一された年表が発表されるようになる[7]

マクロスエース』vol.001 超時空年表、『マクロスアルティメットフロンティア 超時空娘々パック』パッケージ裏面年表、「マクロス・クロスオーバーライブ」パンフレット「The HISTORY of MACROSS」

Translation

Macross II was considered a  parallel world for over 10 years, but in 2009 after the end of "Macross F",a unified timeline including "Zero", "The Super Dimension Fortress Macross", "Plus", "7","F", and "II" will be announced.

Sources

"Macross Ace" vol.001 Super Dimention Chronology,

"Macross Ultimate Frontier Super Dimention Girls Pack" Chronology,

"Macross Crossover Live" Pamphlet "The HISTORY of MACROSS".

 

 

 

This is where I believe MII switched from being a parallel world, to a fully unified timeline in 2009. As far as Big West is concerned.

DeAgostini would later designate it a separate timeline in Macross Chronicle.

Kawamori would still publicly describe it as a parallel world, in 2013 at the Macross Museum.

 

So really it can go either way depending on who you consider the the true authority on Macross. Pick whichever one you like better and go with it.

Edited by Bariaburu Faita
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On 4/9/2021 at 8:34 AM, Zinjo said:

It could, 

My pet idea to shoe horn the series into the main timeline is that M2 takes place on in a colonial system trapped by fold faults for decades.  The only ships to effectively navigate the faults are the PC equipped ships with actual fold quartz and not the fold carbon common in most human made ships.  So when the Mardook arrive in their PC era ships they traverse the faults relatively easily.

It would explain why the mecha look like derivatives of the original designs as the colony didn't have the engineering expertise found in the federal system.  So their versions were simply derived from what they had when they arrived.  The Macross class ship they had was an escort to the original emigration fleet.  If you look at the environment designs of the cities they look very much like repurposed colony ships that landed on the planet.

To finally bring it into the continuity, they could animate a sequence with an NMC carrier arriving shortly after the events of the series to "find" them.

That is how I'd do it.

I like this idea..... very much along the lines of what I was thinking if it were tied into the main storyline, only more filled out. 

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4 minutes ago, Dax415 said:

I like this idea..... very much along the lines of what I was thinking if it were tied into the main storyline, only more filled out. 

And it would only take about 2-5 minutes of additional animation to work it in.

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3 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And it would only take about 2-5 minutes of additional animation to work it in.

True,

it was very tricky to try to add the series into the main continuity before MF introduced fold faults and how fold quartz is able to cut through them.

Though I would think 10-15 minutes would do it, as a prologue would have to be added and the reaction of the M2 NUNS to seeing the federal NUNS task force arriving in their system.

Edited by Zinjo
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5 hours ago, Marzan said:

I like the idea of it being a work of fiction inside of other Macross' series. Makes for a troublefree watch without the headaches of continuity.

 

So far retconing to a in universe fictional account of a historical event, is what they have done for SDFM, DYRL,7,Zero, so I think likely they will do it for II too.

Edited by Bariaburu Faita
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7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

And it would only take about 2-5 minutes of additional animation to work it in.

I don't even think you'd have to do that.  There's plenty of space where you could have a voiceover deliver the applicable adjustments.  And there's almost certainly some kind of starship clip in Frontier or Delta somewhere that could be repurposed for that connecting to the main timeline part.

I like this idea, but I have to admit that I find it humorous the prospect of Robotech style modifications to the original Macross sequel in order to actually link it to the story of the rest of the Macross franchise.

Oh, earlier it was mentioned the structures on Earth in Macross II looked like colony vessels.  I recall seeing an image somewhere (maybe the This is Animation Special) where it shows that the various "buildings"are repurposed Zentran starship shells.  I think there are a few places where this stands out in the show as well.

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3 minutes ago, GabrielV said:

I don't even think you'd have to do that.  There's plenty of space where you could have a voiceover deliver the applicable adjustments.  And there's almost certainly some kind of starship clip in Frontier or Delta somewhere that could be repurposed for that connecting to the main timeline part.

I like this idea, but I have to admit that I find it humorous the prospect of Robotech style modifications to the original Macross sequel in order to actually link it to the story of the rest of the Macross franchise.

Oh, earlier it was mentioned the structures on Earth in Macross II looked like colony vessels.  I recall seeing an image somewhere (maybe the This is Animation Special) where it shows that the various "buildings"are repurposed Zentran starship shells.  I think there are a few places where this stands out in the show as well.

Naw... "RT-style mods" would be trying to piece together MII with two other unrelated series and hack them to bits. Were just talking a little bit of added animation or maybe just a voice-over.

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6 hours ago, Zinjo said:

it was very tricky to try to add the series into the main continuity before MF introduced fold faults and how fold quartz is able to cut through them.

Well, yeah... square peg, round hole?  Macross II belongs to a radically different timeline that emphatically doesn't fit with Kawamori's later work.

 

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Naw... "RT-style mods" would be trying to piece together MII with two other unrelated series and hack them to bits. Were just talking a little bit of added animation or maybe just a voice-over.

Like this?

2 hours ago, GabrielV said:

And there's almost certainly some kind of starship clip in Frontier or Delta somewhere that could be repurposed for that connecting to the main timeline part.

 

 

2 hours ago, GabrielV said:

Oh, earlier it was mentioned the structures on Earth in Macross II looked like colony vessels.  I recall seeing an image somewhere (maybe the This is Animation Special) where it shows that the various "buildings"are repurposed Zentran starship shells.  I think there are a few places where this stands out in the show as well.

Yes, the UN Government and UN Forces in Macross II reuse old Zentradi ships for a lot of different purposes.  Several that've been used as a foundation to build on in Macross City are visible in different establishing shots.  Many others are refurbished for UN Forces use, and several were heavily reworked to become the Macross Cannon-class gunships.  That's kind of Macross II's schtick, Earth has dealt with the Zentradi so many times that they've gotten incredibly good at it and their cup runneth over with secondhand Zentradi hardware.

(For about the first forty years after the First Space War, they barely had to do any shipbuilding of their own because they had SO MANY leftover Zentradi ships.  It wasn't until the 2054 Zentradi invasion depleted their fleet that they had to start seriously considering next-generation warships like the GloriaHeracles, and the new model battleship in the OVA.  By the time the Mardook roll up, the Spacy's technically gone 5-1-1 on main fleets.

 

 

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

I have to ask: does it MATTER if Macross 2 is canon or not? The show can be enjoyed without the explicit blessing of the powers that be. 

It has the explicit blessing of The Powers That Be... as an alternate universe story.

Why it has to fit into the main Macross timeline is beyond me.  Macross Ace included it on the timeline in error, after forgetting it was officially an AU.

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1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Like this?

Well, at least this is also Macross, unlike the other two series that Macek tried to cram into the mix. So there's at least some consistency.

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Why it has to fit into the main Macross timeline is beyond me. 

Because we humans are adept at things like plugging two warp cores together and turning a star into a torus and giving the Vulcan Sience Academy a migraine. :D

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12 hours ago, JB0 said:

I have to ask: does it MATTER if Macross 2 is canon or not? The show can be enjoyed without the explicit blessing of the powers that be. 

That is the point of the thread, Dax415 wants to know how to fit Macross 2 into the canon. That is how he wants to enjoy the show.

Edited by Bariaburu Faita
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Still kind of wish we had got an answer to what that ship was that Ishtar was having the vision of.  It's the thing that kicks off the whole OAV.  It's important enough to prominently feature in the opener.  It's the thing Ishtar searches for the entire OAV and mistakes the SDF-1 for somehow.  Ingues knew of something at least called the same thing, and at least momentarily entertained the idea that the SDF-1 was it, but I don't think he ever truly thought the SDF-1 was related to it at all barring the moment of fear while the main cannon was firing at his ship.

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THis reminds me of the write up I did about how every Macross series is, as SK stated, a dramatization of the events and not the actual story. 
 

 

Edited by Knight26
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8 hours ago, GabrielV said:

Still kind of wish we had got an answer to what that ship was that Ishtar was having the vision of.  It's the thing that kicks off the whole OAV.  It's important enough to prominently feature in the opener.  It's the thing Ishtar searches for the entire OAV and mistakes the SDF-1 for somehow.  Ingues knew of something at least called the same thing, and at least momentarily entertained the idea that the SDF-1 was it, but I don't think he ever truly thought the SDF-1 was related to it at all barring the moment of fear while the main cannon was firing at his ship.

It's the Boat of the Arusu.

Here's the Macross Chronicle glossary entry for it: http://sdfyodogawa.mywebcommunity.org/MCRglossary/Glossary02a.php

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