EBSIS.... still around?

[Nightmask]

I shouldn't have to point out that just because something isn't mentioned doesn't mean it doesn't exist. While the EBSIS isn't mentioned in the anime something like it or exactly like it could easily exist in Robotech, as absence of mention is not proof of absence. They don't mention the moon of Pluto either doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Anyone who wants to keep using them should feel free to do so, as it provides more diversity and because it is a bit difficult given the setting to believe everyone was unified under the UEG. Especially given they beat at least some into submission which doesn't do well for cooperation.

[Seto Kaiba]

Who's hiding behind anything?

pally and hg; its called shadow chronicles.

Huh? I'm lost. In what way, precisely, are Harmony Gold and Palladium Books hiding behind Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles?

[Seto Kaiba]

But it "can't" exist until it is specifically mentioned.

Granted, this would be a true statement IF AND ONLY IF we were talking about EBSIS in the context of the current official ("canon") Robotech continuity. The problem that you're running into with this "EBSIS can't exist until Harmony Gold says it does" argument is that it simply doesn't apply to the RPG. Like all games of its kind, Palladium's Robotech game isn't a canon story-on-rails... it's a tool kit for fans to create and explore their own stories using Robotech as a starting point. Within the confines of the RPG, there is NOTHING that prevents the existence of EBSIS or an EBSIS-like faction, because Harmony Gold isn't the one telling the story... the DM/GM is.

(By nature, the story of a game session is essentially fan-fiction. It's not obligated to stick rigidly to canon, and the guy telling the story can basically do whatever he wants to... it's his story, after all.)

Once Harmony Gold mentions it everything fine from there on, but to accept something exists without proper basis opens the floodgate to- well, ANYTHING. glitter-boys and fairy folk, spylcrith and Klingons are next. (OK, MAYBE not Klingons.)

Would now be a bad time to point out that Palladium's game system is specifically designed to permit crossovers between game universes?


P.S.: I would still very much like to know what you meant by Palladium and Harmony Gold "hiding behind" Shadow Chronicles.

[Jefffar]

Well in terms of laying a foundation, we have one:

There are other government bodies which have not entered entered into treaty with the United Earth Government (UEG), and exist outside its sphere of influence. These "outsiders" have a delicate relationship with the AC and UEG regarding borders, trade and treaties. These "rogue nations" are also home to malcontent Zentraedi Rebels and remnants oh Anti-Unification League terrorist groups.

The above refers to the world political structure after the First Robotech War

The new enemy would be human warlords and Anti-Unification terrorists along with a handful of full-sized Zentraedi rebel hold outs.

The above refers to the considerations the Armies of Southern Cross were making when designing their new mecha. An emphasis in conventional warfare, counter-insurgency warfare and peacekeeping efforts indicates that they expected a lot of trouble from diverse human factions (and also may explain some of the problems suffered when they found themselves dealing with another alien attack).

The UEG hammered out treaties with assorted neighbouring states and brought nearly the entire world under the protective umbrella of the Army of the Southern Cross. Small conflicts broke out with separatists and rebels in remote regions, but overall, it was the quietest stretch the planet had seen in decades.

So the above tells us that these nations were still in existence up until the Master's attack, though for the most part treaties had been worked out that curtailed major hostilities. This also explains why we don't have mention of major independent powers during the Master's Saga episodes - Leonard and other military planners didn't consider them a threat due to treaties.

Now before anybody says 'well that's in the RPG so it's not canon' a few points.

1) Nothing I quoted here directly contradicts what we see on screen at any point. Instead it fills in much needed missing details about the world and provides an explanation for why those details are not mentioned.

2) This is from the new RPG books. These new RPGs get approval from Harmony Gold which, unlike in the days of the past RPG books, is paying careful attention to controlling the content of its universe. So if it's in the RPG books it's there because Harmony Gold said it belonged there.

So do we have a foundation in which independent powers can exist and possibly even flourish after the First Robotech War when the TV series gives us no information? Yes.

Do we have a reason for those same independent powers to still exist during the Second Robotech War without mention in the TV series? Yes.

Do we have reason to believe that one of these independent powers could be based in former Warsaw Pact territory with a penchent for pirating old UEG gear?

A UEEF aerial reconnaissance patrol (two Alphhas with Betas attached, four pilots) over Eastern Europe is intercepted by an unidentified force of old VF-1 Veritech Fighters and/or Conbat Heavy Fighters. In ver broken English the patrol is informed they have violated sovereign airspace and will be escorted to an airbase for questioning.

That looks like a Yes to me.

[Jefffar]

HG signed off on the book that indicated there were independent factions who are opposed to the UEG.

HG signed off on the book that talked about an Eastern European independent faction using pirated UEG mecha.

Neither HG nor Palladium has detailed or named any specific independent faction in the new edition of the RPG, but everything necessary for it to be a part of the RPG is already in place.

Part of me hopes the idea is to get all the stuff seen on screen and in comics published first, then start giving us the unseen stuff, stuff like experimental mecha between the eras, items not seen in UEDF/ASC/UEEF arsenals that should have been there, independent factions and their equipment and so on.

Again, the old SW RPG with it's massive expansion of the universe is a great (and commercially lucrative) example.

[Tiree]

not really; they're never specifically identified, and never by HG.
HG has to lay the foundation. back to the "other groups" before, IIRC there was a German group. do they exist now, too?
how about mecha sui-dai?
underground survivalist groups?
Santa Claus? (that last is fesisus, don't take it literal.)

Well - I hope the Mecha Sui Dai does not come back. You don't see much in the way of any group in the New Generation that has Mecha than people fighting against the Invid. So having a silly group of Mecha Fighters fighting each other in some sort of UFC match.

[Jefffar]

I could honestly see something like Mecha Sui-dai as a legitimate sport between the First and Second Robotech War.

Perhaps a bit more organized and maybe with purpose built battloids instead of military ones.

But I could see it.

[Colonel Wolfe]

I could honestly see something like Mecha Sui-dai as a legitimate sport between the First and Second Robotech War.

Perhaps a bit more organized and maybe with purpose built battloids instead of military ones.

But I could see it.

With the avg Zents being smaller in size now as well. and much stronger... it would almost be a fair fight for them....

[Jefffar]

Almost?

I did some average zentraedi generic stats recently for a campaign. I assumed average rolls for everything. After looking at the numbers I decided that the players should never be outnumbered by the normal warriors, should have to outnumber warrior elites 2 to 1 and a single warlord was a whole party campaign climax encounter.

[taalismn]

I could honestly see something like Mecha Sui-dai as a legitimate sport between the First and Second Robotech War.

Perhaps a bit more organized and maybe with purpose built battloids instead of military ones.

But I could see it.

Agreed. After the Invid invade, mecha are a combat asset, not to be expended on frivolous sports events. Between the first and second Wars, the government is trying to police up loose mecha, but if they can keep an eye on the ones in the sports arenas. Plus. yes, you have emerging high tech companies looking at big military contracts in the future testing their skills and earning some income in the interim by creating commercial use mecha and hotrodding examples for Mecha Su-Dai-style events.

[Comrade Corsarius]

I could honestly see something like Mecha Sui-dai as a legitimate sport between the First and Second Robotech War.

Perhaps a bit more organized and maybe with purpose built battloids instead of military ones.

But I could see it.

Agreed. After the Invid invade, mecha are a combat asset, not to be expended on frivolous sports events. Between the first and second Wars, the government is trying to police up loose mecha, but if they can keep an eye on the ones in the sports arenas. Plus. yes, you have emerging high tech companies looking at big military contracts in the future testing their skills and earning some income in the interim by creating commercial use mecha and hotrodding examples for Mecha Su-Dai-style events.

I fully expect that the Mecha-Su-Dai movie that would then be made would star Hugh Jackmann and some irritating kid.

A lower budget version would star Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Paul Koslo.

[ESalter]

At this stage, the thread needs to overtly evolve past "Yes the E.B.S.I.S. can exist" and "No it doesn't have a place", to the next stage. There are a lot of good ideas here, but we need to ask a new overall question: "Presuming the E.B.S.I.S. does exist, what are the parameters of its relationships with others, and what is the nature of its government, military, covert operations assets, and its overall intent."

In terms of my specific complaints:

Personally, I find the EBSIS's inclusion chauvinistic: it turns Russians into motiveless evildoers. A lot of Robotech material assumes UnG = US, and this strikes me as much the same thing. Its very name sounds like something invented for a generic enemy.

Change the name? "United Northern Eurasian Independent State"?

From a Purist standpoint:

So, they're a potential threat to the Southern Cross? Well geeze. I guess it's a good thing they decided not to bother fighting the Masters when they arrived..or attacking the UEG while they were distracted..or even existing at all in the time period to which they are assigned. Hell, the existence of an army that is slightly less powerful than the Southern Cross would have changed the entire way the second war played out. Whichever faction they sided with would have won WITHOUT the mutual annihilation that actually occurred.

A less overtly hostile EBSIS wouldn't conflict with the animation: Comrade Corsarius says later books did in fact portray them this way. Jefffar pointed out you just need to change the dates of its existence to avoid times shown in the animation; however, that would probably mean they were destroyed by the time covered in the animation.

IMO, they don't even really work within the RPG's continuity: if they were that much of a threat the REF would simply have destroyed them before leaving for Tirol.

Ignoring the series allow a third option: weaken the UnF enough they can't defeat the EBSIS. Reducing the REF to just the SDF-3 would do the trick.

Between the first and second Wars, the government is trying to police up loose mecha, but if they can keep an eye on the ones in the sports arenas. Plus. yes, you have emerging high tech companies looking at big military contracts in the future testing their skills and earning some income in the interim by creating commercial use mecha and hotrodding examples for Mecha Su-Dai-style events.

Mecha su-dai knights?

[Jefffar]

As I mentioned the UEG had concluded treaties with the majority of independent powers by the time the Masters arrived. The EBSIS (or analogue) could have agreed to a settlement before a true war occurred.

[Jefffar]

I'l also point out that EBSIS was more than just the former Soviet Union, it included a fair bit of Eastern and Central Europe.

So with a little twist our villains can be primarily German, giving them another technological bump.

[Chris0013]

Yeah, the worst thing is that they are apparently intending to remake Red Dawn...how the heck is that supposed to work?

reveres the russian and chinese acroding the the rumors.

On the remake...from what I understand...they went thru and CGIed all the Chinese into North Koreans.

[ESalter]

It isn't Chauvinism any longer, it's reusing previously espoused material. I remember when the Russians WERE coming, and we were all supposed to be prepared, that's why movies like Red Dawn worked.

Who's "we"? Why should the USSR's relations with America have anything to do with its relations with Un.?

Now, the only way to make it work would be to paste the Chinese the same way, and that really doesn't work since they are only now getting to a point where they can effective project power.

Why should China be outside Un.?

So at this point, the use of the term E.B.S.I.S. isn't referring specifically to communist Russian scumbags that valiant Americans (and to a lesser extent those other guys in that NATO thing) can fight, but is instead intended to represent a real political and military organization with real reasons for why they are not part of the UEG, and why there exists a state of tension between the two super powers.

But the RPG doesn't have real reasons for why it's not part of the UnG, except for being communist Russian scumbags that valiant Americans can fight.

Are they the bad guys? Maybe, maybe not, but they are the antagonists in this picture, at least in many cases. When the Masters and Invid are around, they could even be short term allies. Are they even evil? Probably not, our entertainment media has had a bit of a tendency to evolve past purely black and white views.

They conquer, aid murderous aliens, and steal whatever's not nailed down.

The point here is that we need a name for this proposed organization, and we already have E.B.S.I.S.

"Eastern Bloc Soviet Independent State" sounds like a name for a manufactured villain.

The A.U.L. isn't really set up to be a political organization, but a guaranteed hostile force that has to be overcome. Their entire stance is antithetical to BOTH the UEG and this proposed E.B.S.I.S. power.

Very little is known about the AUL from the series. In the RPG, the EBSIS is presumably part of the "AUL."

[dataweaver]

The backup story in Invasion includes a scene where AUL terrorists staged a bombing of a UN delegation. Personally, I tend to take most of what was said about the AUL in that issue as UEG propaganda; and what wasn't propaganda was a potentially fringe element of the AUL whose actions were making the rest of the movement look bad. But then, I prefer that the AUL be a bit more three-dimensional, rather than the reactionary cardboard cut-out villains they were portrayed as.

[Chris0013]

The backup story in Invasion includes a scene where AUL terrorists staged a bombing of a UN delegation. Personally, I tend to take most of what was said about the AUL in that issue as UEG propaganda; and what wasn't propaganda was a potentially fringe element of the AUL whose actions were making the rest of the movement look bad. But then, I prefer that the AUL be a bit more three-dimensional, rather than the reactionary cardboard cut-out villains they were portrayed as.

I am looking at it more as a group of rogue nations much as we have today (N Korea, Iran, etc...) and they are (clandestinely) funding things from full out terrorist activites (the bombing), sabotage by insiders (Leonard / Edwards), and more mundane shenanigans. Their goal is to keep pretty much the status quo and not submitting their sovereignty to a global gov.

In reality...and I may be digressing here...try to get the USA remove the President / Congress / SCOTUS and submit to a global governing body and see what happens

[dataweaver]

That's part of my point: I would expect that a significant portion of the AUL would be composed of people who are not bad people in any way; they just don't think that a unified world government is a good thing. I could definitely see a game built around the UEG/AUL conflict, but with the player characters as members of the AUL, struggling to establish and/or maintain freedom from the UEG's plans for global domination.

[FreelancerMar]

@Chris0013

Read my first post on page 2 and you will see my opinion of the US joining the Ueg.

As for the "Bombing" well can you say 3rd party mercenary group hired by the UEG for the express purpose of making the AUL look like the bad guys.

[Jefffar]

I think one thing we have to remember here is that the UEG is not the UN. It is a replacement organization which indicates at some point the UN dissolved (even if only to create the new organization). So it is possible that the circumstances that resulted int he disolution of the UN and the creation of the UEG made the Soviets the opposition.

In the early 1980s the Soviets were doing things like bombing villages in Afghanistan, occupying half of Europe, boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics, funding terrorist operations abroad, conducting clandestine operations in much of the world, expanding their navy and had the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. That is the backgroundUN. in which the EBSIS was created.

So yes, it is actually plausible that in an alternate universe, with the hange points mostly happening in the late 1970s/early 1980s that the Soviets could end up opposed to the UN. This isn't necessarily just some sort of Americans = Good Guys chauvinism.

Then again, there were hints and whispers that the UEG, especially in the post Zentraedi-Global Assault era, wasn't particularly benign by today's standards. The campaign to forcibly micronize and assimilate the Zentraedi could be construed as genocide for example.

So maybe, just maybe, the UEG are just another one of the bad guys in the series.

[dataweaver]

Certainly, the official Robotech take on the ASC-era UEG is that it's a "bad guy" organization in many ways, only qualifying as the good guys when you compare it to the Robotech Masters. The Macross-era UEG, even before the Zentreadi bombardment, may easily have been in a similar role; and the main argument for the UEG's existence was the need to establish a unified defense against the expected Zentreadi threat - something that could not be accomplished while dealing with a Global Civil War.

BTW: That's a key difference between Robotech and Macross. In Macross, the arrival of the alien ship triggered the Global Civil War, which was waged over much of the next ten years and had only really ended a few years prior to the SDF's launch. In Robotech, the ship's arrival ended the Global Civil War, allowing for the establishment of the UEG; and the subsequent UEG/AUL conflict was considerably more low-key, amounting to guerilla warfare attempting to derail an otherwise peaceful unification process. The divergence point between the Robotech timeline and real-world history definitely took place long before the SDF-1's crash-landing.

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US; and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War - which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

[SailorCallie]

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US; and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War - which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

You meant Ronald Reagan since George H.W. Bush was his running mate at the time of the 1980 U.S. Presidental(sp) election.

[taalismn]

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US; and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War - which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

You meant Ronald Reagan since George H.W. Bush was his running mate at the time of the 1980 U.S. Presidental(sp) election.

UNless you set the divergence point even earlier and had Reagan die from Hinckley's (in this case successful) assassination attempt. But that would negate the Reagan-era defense build-up(then again, that might have emboldened the Soviet Union to remain ever more active in its proxy states).

[SailorCallie]

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US; and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War - which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

You meant Ronald Reagan since George H.W. Bush was his running mate at the time of the 1980 U.S. Presidental(sp) election.

UNless you set the divergence point even earlier and had Reagan die from Hinckley's (in this case successful) assassination attempt. But that would negate the Reagan-era defense build-up(then again, that might have emboldened the Soviet Union to remain ever more active in its proxy states).

The attempt didn't happen until after Reagan entered office, which happened in late March, 1981.

[dataweaver]

I meant George Bush; more generally, I meant the 1980 election. I was figuring that George Bush won the Primary but lost the General. And yes, the intent was to remove the Reagan era and thus embolden the Soviets; it's the only halfway-viable scenario that I can see for a global "hot war" in the 90s. Really, it doesn't matter to me who won the 1980 election, as long as it wasn't Reagan.

I also figure that without Reagan at the helm, the US economy didn't have the resurgence that it did in our world. Whether he won or lost the '80 election, Bush wasn't as effective in countering Carter's "malaise" talk as Reagan would have been, and the United States spent another decade struggling both economically and culturally. By 1990, the US was in bad shape. The subsequent Global Civil War didn't help matters (in either side of the conflict); and by the time the SDF-1 crash-landed, people all over the world were looking for an excuse to end the fighting. Enter the UEG movement.

[Chris0013]

@Chris0013

Read my first post on page 2 and you will see my opinion of the US joining the Ueg.

As for the "Bombing" well can you say 3rd party mercenary group hired by the UEG for the express purpose of making the AUL look like the bad guys.

Or even a UEG false flag op.

[dataweaver]

Either way, I definitely see the Soviet government (or whatever it became during the Global Civil War) joining the effort to turn the UN into the UEG. There might still be a separate EBSIS out there; but it's more likely to be parts of the former Soviet Union that aligned with the AUL rather than the UEG, and is unlikely to play a more significant role in the AUL than, say, their American counterparts.

I also figure that the Global Civil War differed from previous global wars in that it tended to lead to divisions within the participating nations as well as between them: the USSR may very well have transformed into something along the lines of the EBSIS during the war, and the US came close to a second national Civil War at the same time - just to mention the most obvious examples. That's why it was called the "Global Civil War" and not "World War III". All in all, not a pleasant time to live through.

And the end result is a split between a popular UEG movement with support from all corners of the globe and an unpopular AUL movement that nevertheless also has support from all over the globe. As I mentioned before, the end result isn't an "East vs. West" division; it's a "Globalist vs. Nationalist" division, with the Globalists getting all of the good press.

[glitterboy2098]

it's worth noting that the show only taks about 'the global war". the term "civil" never gets mentioned in relation to it. the "global civil war" concept was a non-canon creation based on the old (non-canon) Novelization, with no basis in the show.

[dataweaver]

Noted. Still, in order for you to end up with a UEG, something needed to happen to weaken the nations that preceded it. I'm sticking to my (admittedly non-canon) story.

[Jefffar]

However, the series does make it clear that there was a global conflict or series of conflicts ongoing at the time the SDF-1 landed.

So whatever happened during those wars could have demolished the United Nations (indeed I suspect that rampant global wars might cause the UN to pull a League of Nations and dissolve itself). It is likely that several states or groups of states ended up reshaping themselves during this time (for example the former Soviet Union, Poland and Germany combining into an entity known as the Eastern Bloc of Soviet Independent States).

As we have no solid information on what exactly happened during this time, it is entirely conceivable that the a new nation, we'll call them the EBSIS for now, arose that was large and powerful enough to enforce it's own independence from the newly created UEG. They coexist until after the Zentraedi Assault at which time the EBSIS rejects coexistence in favour of expansion. Sometime int he mid-2020s the combination of diplomacy and the military superiority of the ASC brings the EBSIS to the negotiating table and they return to a policy of coexistence at least until after the war with the Masters.

This does not contradict anything found in the show, does not suddenly turn the Soviet Union anti-United Nations (though there was precedent in its history for that). It gives us a bad guy who can be present in the parts of the story arc that aren't heavily scripted but conveniently absent during on screen dialogue.

[dataweaver]

If we go by the Macross Sourcebook or the "UN Spacy" logos seen on some EEDF spacecraft, the UN did not dissolve; likewise, the backup story in Invasion spoke of a UN delegation being bombed by AUL terrorists. It's more likely that the UN acted as the skeleton around which the UEG was built.

As I said before, I'm entirely comfortable with the notion of the Global War drastically reshaping geopolitics, and I'm fine with the notion that the USSR got reforged as the EBSIS during said conflict. But I don't see said nation successfully establishing independence from the UEG without signing on with the AUL, either officially or unofficially. Indeed, I tend to think that the "AUL", as a formal organization may not have had any significant existence outside of UEG propaganda: either you're with the UEG or you're against it; and if you're against it, you are de facto part of the so-called AUL.

[Jefffar]

UN would have needed to disolve at some point, that or it still exists in parallel to the UEG.

The UEG is as much the UN as the UN is the League of Nations. They are successor organizations.

[dataweaver]

It's nitpicking: whether the UN disbanded and was replaced by the UEG or it expended and became the UEG, the effect was the same: in 2003, there was a UN working toward establishing a UEG, and in 2009 there was a UEG.

[Seto Kaiba]

If we go by the Macross Sourcebook or the "UN Spacy" logos seen on some EEDF spacecraft, the UN did not dissolve; [...]

[...] The UEG is as much the UN as the UN is the League of Nations. They are successor organizations.

Actually, even in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, that "UN" didn't stand for "United Nations". It's a (contrived) acronym for the [Unity/Unified] Government. As far as the original story goes, the United Nations formally ceased to exist in January 2001, and was replaced at that time by the newly-inaugurated Unity Government.

[Seto Kaiba]

could the united nations have voted itself out of existence into the "united earth government"?

Yes, that's how it worked in the original Macross. It would also make a certain amount of sense in Robotech, given that the "From the Stars" miniseries depicts a kind of prototype for the UEDF (really Unity Gov't) insignia as the "arrow" superimposed on the United Nations seal.

[dataweaver]

If we go by the Macross Sourcebook or the "UN Spacy" logos seen on some EEDF spacecraft, the UN did not dissolve; [...]

[...] The UEG is as much the UN as the UN is the League of Nations. They are successor organizations.

Actually, even in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, that "UN" didn't stand for "United Nations". It's a (contrived) acronym for the [Unity/Unified] Government. As far as the original story goes, the United Nations formally ceased to exist in January 2001, and was replaced at that time by the newly-inaugurated Unity Government.

Well: as you well know, Robotech isn't Macross. I'll have to dig up my copy of the Macross Sourcebook to verify, but ISTR seeing something in there about UN standing for "United Nations".

But more importantly, the backup story in Invasion had the Anti-Unification League bombing a United Nations delegation in 2003 in an effort to prevent the formation of a united Earth government. So it's confirmed that the UN survived the Global War (which, remember, ended with the SDF-1's crash-landing) and was instrumental in forming the UEG. Whether it was incorporated into the UEG or was simply disbanded when the UEG was formed is a moot point; the important point is that the UEG is a continuation of the UN, not just a successor to it. That is, the connection between the UN and the UEG is a lot tighter than the connection between the League of Nations and the UN ever was.

[Seto Kaiba]

Well: as you well know, Robotech isn't Macross.

You wouldn't know it looking at the Macross Saga Sourcebook...

I'll have to dig up my copy of the Macross Sourcebook to verify, but ISTR seeing something in there about UN standing for "United Nations".

I'm in a somewhat obliging mood tonight, so I dug my copy out and checked for you. In the Macross Saga Sourcebook (2E), the name "UN Spacy" is only seen on one or two pictures in the Super Valkyrie entry (p75-6). Its meaning is never explained. The closest we ever get to an explanation is on page 51, when the book refers to the organization by the name "the United Earth Defense Force (UEDF) Space Fleet (Spacy)". The only mention (so far) of the United Nations is in the F203 entry, and not in connection with the "UN Spacy" markings we see in the series.

So it's confirmed that the UN survived the Global War (which, remember, ended with the SDF-1's crash-landing) and was instrumental in forming the UEG. Whether it was incorporated into the UEG or was simply disbanded when the UEG was formed is a moot point; the important point is that the UEG is a continuation of the UN, not just a successor to it.

When was it ever in doubt? As a point of reference, the UEG wasn't inaugurated until 2005 in Robotech, so the United Nations hadn't yet been dissolved/disbanded and replaced with the United Earth Government. I'd hesitate to call it a continuation of the UN, as it's a rather dramatically different organization. It would, however, appear that the UEG was the result of a similar arrangement to the Unity Government in the original Macross (which was probably intentional, as it saves Tommy a lot of time), in that its organization was the end result of a plan framed by the United Nations and took over governance after the UN's dissolution.

Obviously, the "UN Spacy" markings on the mecha of the Macross Saga are simply a slight plot hole that Robotech just has to live with...

[dataweaver]

Well: as you well know, Robotech isn't Macross.

You wouldn't know it looking at the Macross Saga Sourcebook...

:chuckle: Though the Zentreadi soldiers who went emo due to drug withdrawal rather than exposure to "culture" is a pretty radical difference. That said, I do wish that the Macross Saga Sourcebook had included stats for the VF-3, despite it never making it to the "production model" stage.

So it's confirmed that the UN survived the Global War (which, remember, ended with the SDF-1's crash-landing) and was instrumental in forming the UEG. Whether it was incorporated into the UEG or was simply disbanded when the UEG was formed is a moot point; the important point is that the UEG is a continuation of the UN, not just a successor to it.

When was it ever in doubt? As a point of reference, the UEG wasn't inaugurated until 2005 in Robotech, so the United Nations hadn't yet been dissolved/disbanded and replaced with the United Earth Government.

This came up in response to an assertion that the UN had probably been destroyed during the Global War.

I'd hesitate to call it a continuation of the UN, as it's a rather dramatically different organization. It would, however, appear that the UEG was the result of a similar arrangement to the Unity Government in the original Macross (which was probably intentional, as it saves Tommy a lot of time), in that its organization was the end result of a plan framed by the United Nations and took over governance after the UN's dissolution.

This strikes me as a distinction without difference: as Admiral Hayes demonstrates, many if not most of the same people who were working in the UN in 2004 were working in the UEG in 2005, and performing similar jobs. It isn't confirmed, but the "UN" in "UN Spacy" could easily stand for "United Nations", and the "formation" of the UEG could just as easily be a radical restructuring of the UN as a separate organization that takes it's place. (I'm not asserting that it was, at least not in canon; but it may have been, and it was in my own take on the Robotech setting, the one I use in my games.)

[Seto Kaiba]

That said, I do wish that the Macross Saga Sourcebook had included stats for the VF-4, despite it never making it to the "production model" stage.

Really, I was also surprised that the VF-X-4/YF-4 never made it into the book... I suspect it's something to do with there being no transformation art for it. Kind of a deal-breaker, I think.

This came up in response to an assertion that the UN had probably been destroyed during the Global War.

So it did... my bad.

This strikes me as a distinction without difference: as Admiral Hayes demonstrates, many if not most of the same people who were working in the UN in 2004 were working in the UEG in 2005, and performing similar jobs.

I'd call it fairly different... at least in theory, the people holding those jobs under the UN at the time were operating in completely separate services under cooperative agreements, not part of a single, unified command structure. Afterwards, those separate military forces got merged into a single entity (the UEDF) and these people were all suddenly answerable to a single authority.

It isn't confirmed, but the "UN" in "UN Spacy" could easily stand for "United Nations", and the "formation" of the UEG could just as easily be a radical restructuring of the UN as a separate organization that takes it's place. (I'm not asserting that it was, at least not in canon; but it may have been, and it was in my own take on the Robotech setting, the one I use in my games.)

Seems a little complicated...

[Chris0013]

That said, I do wish that the Macross Saga Sourcebook had included stats for the VF-4, despite it never making it to the "production model" stage.

Really, I was also surprised that the VF-X-4/YF-4 never made it into the book... I suspect it's something to do with there being no transformation art for it. Kind of a deal-breaker, I think.

IIRC someone said that TY had come up with some but it was not that great....would still like to see it though.

[Colonel Wolfe]

IIRC someone said that TY had come up with some but it was not that great....would still like to see it though.

Tommy did make a Alternate mode for the Condor, and bragged online he was gonna show it to his Cali fans (and leak insider info as usual, what he got tom bateman fired for). but I don't recall tommy coming up for a VF-X-4 alt modes.

[Seto Kaiba]

IIRC someone said that TY had come up with some but it was not that great....would still like to see it though.

You're probably thinking of the Condor armo-soldier, which allegedly he intended to show to some of the Cali crowd. I don't believe anyone's actually ever seen it, and it never made it onto Robotech.com. I can't help but think that rumor is actually about the concept for the VF-13 Gamma Fighter that Tommy did, which looked like a transforming Conbat.

As a side note, Macross co-creator and mechanical designer Shoji Kawamori did briefly toy with ways of making his VF-X-4 design transform. He made a couple rough drafts, that were eventually printed in his Macross Design Works book, but he never finished the transformation or alt modes. Some of his sketches later became the basis for the alt-mode forms of the mass-production VF-4 first seen in Macross: Flashback 2012, and others became the basis for other designs like the VF-X-7.

[Jefffar]

Warning: If you have difficulties understanding a particular poster's style of posting I recommend that you contact them via Private Message to politely ask for clarification or to politely suggest ways in which they could make their post more clear.

Posting about it on the public forum only derails threads.

I have edited a few posts out relating to this that had nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

[Colonel Wolfe]

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US; and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing, the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War - which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

My Pet theory is John Hinckley, Jr. Killes Reagan in 81, and Leads to George H.W. Bush getting into office, and winning 2 re-elections... WW3 starts After Clinton Defeats Dan Quayle in 92...

[ZINO]

Also, dataweaver's approach helps explain why the U.S. would be considerably less resistant to joining the UEG new world order, as they would have been suffering under several DECADES worth of recession, a decade or more of minor and major conflict, and would, in general, be unwilling to put up with what they would see as a massively failed leadership trend.

In this sort of setting, a more liberal view of a world government would be in some ways easier to swallow, and would also include a significant degree of fear based impetus when it was announced there really were GIANT FREAKING GREEN MEN COMING TO GET US ALL!!!!! It would still be a stretch to see America vote away even a marginal amount of their sovereignty, but a charismatic leader might be able to convince America that trading their smaller part of the donut (in this setting America isn't truly a Superpower, but merely a powerful nation with a lot of issues, a bit like France or Spain right now really...) for a position of power within the greater world pie was worth it. (*** cough, cough, Obama care, cough, cough ***)

It's still a bit of a stretch, but it DID happen in Europe, where all parties involved ceded a portion of their authority to a centralized political force, so it certainly isn't impossible, and those elements of the U.S. civilian, social, military and industrial sectors that didn't agree with this move could certainly support, champion, join and supply an A.U.L. movement.

None of which manages to move us along the path to establishing a more "realistic" E.B.S.I.S. or E.B.S.I.S.-like organization... such as the Euro-Asiatic Block of Socialist Independent States…no need to be communist or even directly relatable to the U.S.S.R. at all really.

Either way, I can’t see an E.B.S.I.S. like organization being a part of what is essentially the militant terrorist branch like the A.U.L., it simply doesn’t work form a political point of view. The A.U.L. is most certainly the “bad” guys in this picture, we can tell that from their various actions to date (sabotage, infiltration, and in Macross settings out and out limited scale conflicts), while the opposition superpower would have to be more politically acceptable, a group that could be dealt with by coming to the table.

Maybe the UN does still exist as the main method by which UEG and non UEG nations can air their respective grievances? It would have been greatly overshadowed by the UEG, a super organization similar in nature to the European Union, but it might still exist as a sort of toothless tiger compared to the UEG and its willingness to “get their hands dirty” as and where they see fit. Thus, an A.U.L. attack on the U.N. is not critical because the U.N. is no longer critical, the loss of a few diplomats being annoying rather than halting any given effort on the part of the UEG. The reason such a target was chosen instead of some other more important UEG target is simply because the U.N. is still viewed as responsible for the creation of the UEG, the UEG is a hardened target (all of their structures are likely to be MDC, their security troops wearing some level of MDC armor, and their tendency to respond with overwhelmingly lethal force a known factor) so instead they target the softer U.N., which would still have non UEG targets to hit, diplomats from independent/rogue nations, call it a case of having to break a few eggs to make an omelet, or a real belief that the U.N is just as much an enemy as the UEG. By the time of the Masters invasion, the U.N. would have been pretty much ignored, neither of the two unified superpowers much caring what it said, and the other non-aligned nation states finally accepting the U.N. would never become the vehicle through which their grievances would be treated with respect.

I do see the E.B.S.I.S. being a sometimes supporter of the A.U.L. to further their own goals, but by the same token there would also be support from those anti-unification elements within the UEG that never left, funneling resources in to further their goals of disentangling their own nations from the UEG’s grasping limbs. Independent/Rogue nations might provide support because they want the A.U.L. to become such a treat to them that their nation will have to move into one of the two organizations with the real power to protect them. Heck, even legitimate organizations like UEG and E.B.S.I.S. intelligence services might fund them in part to get them to strike the other guy, strike dissident sectors of their own organizations, or even just to keep the enemy of a mind to funnel cash at the problem to they can’t turn their full attentions towards their true opponents in the intelligence business It’s not like the A.U.L. will care where the resource come from, they intend to take both/all sides down eventually anyhow. We don’t even need to attribute a significant level of reason to the A.U.L., after all, there are plenty of organizations that never succeeded in their goals, and believed right up until they were eliminated that they were making a difference. The fact that a few DID manage to bring about change through radical (c.f. terrorist) maneuvers just exhorts the A.U.L. to try harder.


(Edited to add some thought I had after realizing their was an ENTIRE additional page of posts I missed...whoops, my bad!)

I.M.H.O the E.B.S.I.S is one of the players of the A.U.L and help others like china ,parts Africa and parts Central America and parts South America and the main battle grounds are mostly in the pacific but the hard line one are in the middle east and hit/attack parts of Europe.

[dataweaver]

If you take the AUL to be "a general anti-unification coalition that has a violent fringe element that makes it look bad" rather than "a violent anti-unification coalition", then yes: any group that cooperates with others in the cause of anti-unification is d facto a member of the AUL.

[ZINO]

If you take the AUL to be "a general anti-unification coalition that has a violent fringe element that makes it look bad" rather than "a violent anti-unification coalition", then yes: any group that cooperates with others in the cause of anti-unification is d facto a member of the AUL.

nice 1
and indeed

[ESalter]

I am looking at it more as a group of rogue nations much as we have today (N Korea, Iran, etc...)....

What do you mean by "rogue nations"?

In reality...and I may be digressing here...try to get the USA remove the President / Congress / SCOTUS and submit to a global governing body and see what happens

I doubt Un. members are required to relinquish their governments, and the US agrees to give up a little bit of sovereignty every time it signs a treaty.

In the early 1980s the Soviets were doing things like bombing villages in Afghanistan, occupying half of Europe, boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics, funding terrorist operations abroad, conducting clandestine operations in much of the world, expanding their navy and had the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world.

That's a broad list: bombing villages, and boycotting the Olympics; in any case, I doubt their list of crimes is much longer than that of many other countries (such as the US).

That is the backgroundUN. in which the EBSIS was created.

How is anything on the list relevant to Soviet–world government relations?

Then again, there were hints and whispers that the UEG, especially in the post Zentraedi-Global Assault era, wasn't particularly benign by today's standards. The campaign to forcibly micronize and assimilate the Zentraedi could be construed as genocide for example.

So maybe, just maybe, the UEG are just another one of the bad guys in the series.

In the RPG1E, the UnF are the heroes.

BTW: That's a key difference between Robotech and Macross. In Macross, the arrival of the alien ship triggered the Global Civil War, which was waged over much of the next ten years and had only really ended a few years prior to the SDF's launch. In Robotech, the ship's arrival ended the Global Civil War...

The phrase "Global Civil War" is not used in the series; the fighting prior to the Visitor's arrival is called "global war" ("global war" exists now).

...allowing for the establishment of the UEG; and the subsequent UEG/AUL conflict was considerably more low-key, amounting to guerilla warfare attempting to derail an otherwise peaceful unification process.

Details of the Last War are unknown, but it wiped out a generation of fighter pilots and killed everyone on Mars.

The divergence point between the Robotech timeline and real-world history definitely took place long before the SDF-1's crash-landing.

I don't think we know that.

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US...

Why not?

...and by 1990, instead of the Soviet Union collapsing...

Why not?

...the Cold War heated up into a Global Civil War...

Cold wars heat into hot wars, not civil wars.

...which then lasted for another decade, ending only when the SDF-1 crash-landed and gave the pro-Unification factions hiding in each nation a cause to rally around.

What's "Unification"?

I also figure that without Reagan at the helm, the US economy didn't have the resurgence that it did in our world.

According to Wikipedia, the '70s recession ended in 1975.

Whether he won or lost the '80 election, Bush wasn't as effective in countering Carter's "malaise" talk as Reagan would have been...

Carter's "'malaise' talk" was a single speech near the end of his term. Why would it need to be "countered"?

...and the United States spent another decade struggling both economically...

Why?

...and culturally.

What do you mean?

By 1990, the US was in bad shape.

In what way?

The subsequent Global Civil War didn't help matters (in either side of the conflict); and by the time the SDF-1 crash-landed, people all over the world were looking for an excuse to end the fighting. Enter the UEG movement.

If everyone wanted to end the fighting, they wouldn't need a "UEG movement."

Still, in order for you to end up with a UEG, something needed to happen to weaken the nations that preceded it.

Do you? What if the member nations simply thought they had more to gain by joining?

It is likely that several states or groups of states ended up reshaping themselves during this time (for example the former Soviet Union, Poland and Germany combining into an entity known as the Eastern Bloc of Soviet Independent States).

In the RPG, the EBSIS is a new nation formed after the RoD.

If we go by the Macross Sourcebook or the "UN Spacy" logos seen on some EEDF spacecraft, the UN did not dissolve....

Earth's forces are often called the "United Earth Forces" or something similar; AFAIK, "United Nations Forces" is never used. This suggests to me the single use of "U.N. SPACY" should be ignored.

[dataweaver]

In the interest of avoiding a politically-charged flame-war, I'm going to restrict my comments to a few key points.

...allowing for the establishment of the UEG; and the subsequent UEG/AUL conflict was considerably more low-key, amounting to guerilla warfare attempting to derail an otherwise peaceful unification process.

Details of the Last War are unknown, but it wiped out a generation of fighter pilots and killed everyone on Mars.

The Global War ended with the arrival of Zor's ship, and Mars Base was wiped out by a Zentreadi advance scout in 2003. The Invasion comic has the details.

My own pet theory is that the divergence point may have taken place as early as 1980, when Jimmy Carter defeated George Bush and won a second term as President of the United States. The subsequent decade didn't play out all that well for the US...

Why not?

To be blunt, because that's how I imagine it. This is, after all, my own pet theory. Without getting into a potentially heated political debate, I cannot (and thus will not) say more.