Earth: Post Invid

[mech798]

So what happens?

You have lots of rebels, a fair number of Invid collaborators (and from at least some episodes, they looked to be fairly well organized) bandits, people who want to be left alone, and a fair number orf soldiers who may or may not know that the REF's ultimate plan was OPeration: Blow Up North America; You're sacrifice will be honored citizen. (If you go with shadow chronicles, yes it would have been the earth, but they didn't know about that).

Earth has a complete leadership vacuum and lots of groups that are used to operating on their own.

So, two possible avenues:

1. The Shadow Chronicles continuety-- the UEEF has, like the Robotech Masters before them, and demonstraing the same level of idiocy, managed to lose the magical box that all their technology depends on.

2. The pre-Shadow Chronicles continuity, where protoculture is not an issue, because well, the first thing they did with Rem and Cabal once they made one matrix, was lock them into a factory until the made a lot of matrices, along with instructions of how to make more.

[Tiree]

The vacuum will be filled - that's a given.

But it will be more of what is already out there, unless someone tries to unite the people. Based on Shadow Chronicles, my bet is that the UEEF will fill that void with a unified government. My view, it will take the UEEF much longer to unite the people under it's banner than before. Probably more folks unwilling to join, just because of 'Last Time'.

Several decades out everyone will be in the fold, or marginalized to minimal pockets of holdouts.

[thorr-kan]

Macross II.

We've even got the sourcebooks for it!

[taalismn]

Depends on how many and well developed the offworld colonies are.
The offworld colonies have access to deep space resources at least, and Factory Satellites, but not a helluva lot of manpower.

There's Tirol, too, but Tirol's been pretty used up and the population drawn down even more than Earth, and, depending on what sources you use, the bulk of the UEEF Liberation Fleets had to be built with Karbarrean help.

Earth even as is still has RESOURCES, biological and mineral, and a recovering population, but depending on how well off the colonies are, the latter may not immediately jump to impose a unified government on Earth if it means inheriting a planetary basketcase that will tie up reconstruction funds and peacekeeping forces for years, even decades. THey may just make contact with and sign a few treaties with the more progressive emergent power blocs/city-states on Earth and hope that the higher standard of living that hopefully result from the trade and aid, will bring the others around to join too in Unification, especially as the UEEF has the current monopoly on space travel in the system.

The focus of Terran-Human government and greater society might shift to one of the colonies, leaving Mother Earth recovering, but marginalized as the main driver of human affairs.

[glitterboy2098]

immediately after the invid leave, all the warlords and barons in the bigger, more well off communities would declare themselves sovereign nations and dig out all the old weapons they were too afraid to use under the invid. some might ally with the UEEF to get access to relief supplies, others would try to stay independant. you can bet within a year there would be at least a couple wars going on. with the planets infrastructure all but gone, the protoculture shortage, and the haydonite war.. the UEEF would be hard pressed to police everything. and might even have issues getting enough relief supplies to earth to help the city-states that allied with them.

i could see the UEEF taking a policy of "helping you help yourselves", sending teachers to the allied states to show them how to improve their agriculture and manufacturing, and to help them organize their governments. not to mention 'advisors' to help organize and train their armed forces.

i could see the UEEF setting up their HQ in new York, since that is one of the few places with semi-intact civilization and no major warlord or baron already in place. they might even refurbish the old UN building to act as a kind of earth government center, where representatives of their allied nations (and perhaps ambassadors from the unallied ones) can gather and discuss ways to help rebuild the world.

[taalismn]

The UEEF might find itself in the position of having to interdict any spacecraft coming up from the surface; salvaged stuff, particularly from the Liberation Fleets, but now in the hands of Earthside nations and organizations. The latter claim right of salvage, the former claim they still have legal possession to the equipment.
Depending on the operating parties, the UEEF MIGHT allow the continued operation of the vessels, but at some point a ship is going to be seized under suspicion of piracy or something similar.

[Peacebringer]

There might be a movement to unite Earth and the UEF will try to unify the various surviving barons and warlords. This might be a source of an armed conflict.

[Chris0013]

I imagine the UEEF will try to unify everything under themselves....and there will be a lot of people who really don't give a crap about that and will want to be left the heck alone.

I think the only way the UEEF will get the unity they want is through force.

[Jefffar]

Well it won't be the first time the earth was united through force of arms, so I don't think they'd necessarily shirk at it.

[keir451]

Well it won't be the first time the earth was united through force of arms, so I don't think they'd necessarily shirk at it.

I've solved that issue by dropping a large group of CS soldiers into the mix. If you follow the ending of Shadow Chronicles then w/out the SDF-4(?) the fleet has a years worth of power left. Now considering that my CS guys have been there for at least a year or so already they'll be the best bet in the long run. Some groups may like them better than the REF/UEEF as THEIR tech doesn't rely on Protoculture.

[mech798]

A big questoin is how many people are in the UEEF offworld. the number of colonies is left very limited, and so earth might still have the larger populatin, especially since the Invid didn't seem much into actively chasing people down and I expect after the SC debacle, a lot of people took off from the biggest cities.

[Jefffar]

There was a fairly sizable evacuation from Earth, including much of the surviving SC forces. I suspect most of those big city folks are living on UEEF space stations and colonies.

Indeed, quite a number of them were likely participants in the UEEF reclamation fleets.

[keir451]

There was a fairly sizable evacuation from Earth, including much of the surviving SC forces. I suspect most of those big city folks are living on UEEF space stations and colonies.

Indeed, quite a number of them were likely participants in the UEEF reclamation fleets.

Of course considering how "well" the reclamation fleets did that would leave the UEEF with a current scarcity of personnel as well as equipment. It'll take them some time to rebuild their forces and even then there's the possibility that some of the colonies may decide against participating.
Also where was it listed/mentioned that there was a "fairly sizable evacuation from Earth", not arguing, just genuinely interested as I can't recall seeing it. The best I recall is that (supposedly) Dana Sterling and the rest of the 15th ATAC and many Tirolian clones took a ship back to Tirol.
On a separate note: The UEEF is, IMO, not very well equipped to conduct a lengthy battle to re-stabilize Earth. Their fleet is in tatters, they've spent the better part of their time away fighting a non-human menace and now they've got yet another alien menace to contend with. The only group with the training to operate as a ground force was the SC and they're scattered to the four winds on Earth (and their ability to do even that seems questionable). There's a good chance the remaining populace may not even WANT them there.
So it's not just going to be a case of military power it's also going be a case of winning the hearts and minds of the remnant populace as well. Looks like an uphill battle all the way.

[glitterboy2098]

keep in mind that there are, by canon, millions of people on earth as of 2044 (battle of reflex point) (as attested to by dialog)

while the exact number is subject to debate, it is likely that the numbers on earth greatly outnumber the surviving UEEF.

also worth noting that even under the invid, Earth had a pretty large amount of weaponry (enough so that even biker gangs had military grade weaponry), enough to threaten UEEF survivors with the latest (for the time) mecha. heck, a lot of that weaponry probably came from picking over ASC bases and UEEF wrecks. this would mean the UEEF would have to devote a lot of resources to peacekeeping on earth if they tried the heavy handed approach.

and lets not forget, the last time the united earth government tried to unify the world using the big stick approach, they generated a grassroots resistance in the form of the anti-unification league. and that caused a lot of problems for the world, using little more than cold war era weaponry. imagine the trouble a new anti-UEEF resistance might cause with access to Veritechs, destroids, Cyclones, and all the other advanced tech that had sat unused under the invid?

the UEEF will have to be very careful with earth. they can't afford to generate grassroots resistance again. not with the haydonite war happening, a fuel limitation, and their biggest unique technological force multipliers compromised.

[mech798]

The best tactic for the UEEF would be to use the carrot, not the stick-- lots of people have mecha-- how many have functioning hospitals? Power plants? roads? The image of a bunch of alpha's using mecha sized shovels to lay a new roadbed sounds funny, but if it gets people thinking "hey this UEEF thing is a pretty good deal" rather than "Martha, where's our old cyclone?" it's worth more than any number of combat ready formations.

[Sambot]

I think the UEEF would try for a new United Earth Government with city states but it'd be a tough sell. Some entire cities were collaborators. I don't think they'd be willing to join and the UEEF wouldn't be to happy to have them either. The UEEF might be more willing to work with some but it depends on the level of treachery and how entrenched in power the leaders are. The UEEF also can't be too heavy handed or they'd be seen as just another space invader. Plus some of their own people might balk at wiping them out. Sure they're willing to sacrifice humans to get rid of the Invid but now that the Invid are gone troops may not be willing to wipe out fellow humans. Sure some will see it as punishing traitors but others signed up to Liberate Earth. Not be invaders.

I do think that there will be lots of Treason/Crime's Against Humanity Trials with defendants claiming the UEEF doesn't even have that authority to try them. There could even be lots of fighting trying to arrest them. (Pretty sure of it.) Finding an impartial jury wouldn't be easy either. Trials will be come even more difficult once it comes out who the UEEF is allied with; Aliens. Not just Zentraedi but also Tiroleans, the Sentinals races, and even a few Invid! Of course all trials and treaties will be complicated by the UEEF power vacuum. If there is one. I really have no idea who's in charge. Plus there's all the rebuilding the UEEF needs to do. They're not exactly set up for multiple protracted campaigns on Earth against fellow humans and that's what they're going to have if they try to force people to join a new UEG.

And above all that the UEEF would have to overcome lack of interest. The world is kind of small with global communications and business. So if a war breaks out it'll effect everyone. That isn't true post Invid. There is no sense of global community that the UEEF can appeal to form a new successful UEEG.

Best case scenario I see is the UEEF setting themselves up less a single Earth government and something more like the United Nations. Actually, more like Babylon 5's Interstellar Alliance. They'll govern and protect those who want them too while providing a means of negotiation for everyone else. And if anyone state plans to attack another everyone will know about it. Other than that each state is one their own.

[Jefffar]

Keir, we see the evacuation in the first episode of the New Generation arc of the series. It's also re-examined in the Love Live Alive movie. There are many ships that are seen leaving earth and they are quite sizable. The 15th ATAC was among those evacuated.

[keir451]

Keir, we see the evacuation in the first episode of the New Generation arc of the series. It's also re-examined in the Love Live Alive movie. There are many ships that are seen leaving earth and they are quite sizable. The 15th ATAC was among those evacuated.

Not that I don't believe you, but I just recently reached the entire next gen saga and I don't recall seeing any evacuation. I'll go back and look again to see if I just over looked it.

Ok, I think I see what you mean. Starting at about 02:25 in the beginning scenes of Next Generation disc one I see the shuttles leaving Earth. Alas I must disagree that "they are quite sizable", they just look like large shuttles with transport pods underneath. I always took them to be an artists interpretation of the SC shuttle craft.
The ships in the next scene are those of the 21st Mats Attack Fleet, IIRC.
I knew that the 15 ATAC had, supposedly left Earth, but could find no reference to it in the RPGs, most often it was mentioned here on the boards and in the novels. Still, there are millions of people left on the planet. Even given the evacuation that'd be a not insignificant amount of people with a potential chip on their shoulder.

[Jefffar]

If you watch Love Live Alive there's a bit more of it. Again it's mostly quick scenes, but there is definitely an evacuation.

[keir451]

If you watch Love Live Alive there's a bit more of it. Again it's mostly quick scenes, but there is definitely an evacuation.

Ok, found it again. Yeah that's a much better depiction of the evacuation. A decent amount of shuttles and at least one Garfish that I could see. That'd probably be enough top get them to Space Station Liberty and then if the 15th is in the Garfish and it has a fold drive then they could get to Tirol.
I ran a different scenario for one of my games wherein Zor didn't die and the 15th came back to Earth after warning the REF/UEEF. My thinking was that despite their battle weariness, the attitudes of the REF might be too much for them and they decided that they'd rather head back to Earth and try their best there. than put up with the sanctimonious BS of the colonies and others looking down on them because they "failed". The ones who would be most likely to stay would be Louie (obviously) and Bowie. I'd bet on Dana getting bored real quick and chafing under her parents well intentioned, but ultimately oppressive attempts to soothe and comfort her. Just my personal take on it though, doesn't mean anything as far as "canon" goes, of course.