Robotech Crossover question

[taalismn]

I first saw Robotech when I was in elementary school, though I'd seen the art (actually one of the better paintings showing the SDF1 lifting off) in STARLOG magazine advertising the direct-t-home VHS tape sales. So I was surprised/shocked to see it airing after school. First or second episode I was hooked, especially after the action sequence where we see a gerwalk veritech skimming up a highway loop get shredded by a Battlepod. For a moment you see the pilot's hand thrown up as the Regult walked its fire into his cockpit. You KNEW that dude was dead.
This was NOT moron fodder like Voltron where they sanitized the violence by claiming that the g-suited space fighter pilots getting vaporized by the Druuls were 'just robots'. I had already been watching movies like 'The Guns of Navaronne' and any number of WW2 films. Robotech/Macross was a step above the stuff that was previously airing. It was movie-quality sci-fi storytelling. Others might claim this was desensitizing our malleable minds to violence, but my generation didn't have the sort of RL violence that came later.

[killgore444]

For me, my introduction to Robotech was the RPG by PBs. It was the first PBs game I played, and it got me hooked on PFRPG and the 1st ed of HU. But the animations just didn't do anything for me (maybe it was just the episodes I managed to see). And while I'll admit that as a kid I thought the Voltron with the lions was OK (but not the one with cars), I find that I like it more as an adult, but even that is more of a case of looking back at 80s cartoons and thinking about all the crap they got away with then that sensors would thrown a tantrum over now.

The Robotech story books however were awesome. I found myself being better able to visualize what was going on from the descriptions in the books and the art work in the game than I could from the few episodes I saw. If nothing else, the books described what the characters were thinking rather than trying to figure out from what happened in the show. Like why the hell didn't Fokker get sent to the medbay? Actually, that one never got explained.

But even back then, I was already trying to work cross overs in. One of my AD&D games featured an Orc tribe piloting battle pods, so the players had to search out a magic destriod to fight them (this was before I had a copy of PFRPG).

[Zer0 Kay]

So the year before I started highschool i saw RT on the cartoon channel. That summer I found a battletech tech manual back in the day when they used to use a bunch of Macross Mecha. I took it to a mini bootcamp the Highschool JROTC was holding at Ft. Richardson and met a guy who approached me because I was reading the manual. He asked me if I liked Battletech and I got it because of the RT stuff since there wasn't an RT game. He told me he'd introduce me to a friend who owned it and that friend and I have been best friends ever since. We crossed over everything primarily through TMNT using Transdimensional and figured when Rifts came out it was going to be PBs transdimensional outside of TMNT. I miss those days all the different systems to learn and all of them complex and deep not like the stagnant systems and imaginations that dominate the trade. Back in the day when people were open minded and everything was allowed unless the rules say they weren't, making games and gamers tolerant and accepting. Unlike now where apparently if the rules don't specifically state something then it isn't in there. Making some players call systems and other players racist, phobic and istic when those same systems and players are just as open as they always have been and the screeching wheel is the intolerant, myopic. Granted there have been horribly racist games but the majority of the community has always denounced those.

[DairuggerXV]

Why does it not suprise me that this thread is still going strong? Yeah, my first interaction with it was when I was in elementary school. The Masters Saga was playing on AFN. However, after it disappeared from AFN (or I moved back to the states, hard to remember which), it'd be some years before I picked up on Robotech again through the novels. Hmmm... seems my old posts are gone along with my original account, but anyway. Hey all, I'm back if any of you remember me.

[DairuggerXV]

Try number 2...

Hi all, kinda surprised this thread is still going. Though my old account and posts are gone... Anyway, I first saw Robotech in Elementary school, probably second or third grade. I didn't think about it again after I stopped seeing the show on AFN. I got back in via the novels and then some new friends introduced me to the RPG.

Recently started getting back into Robotech again. I do have two Robotech related projects that are in various degrees of "in the works." One is my usual what if stuff (if anyone remembers the old Masters Conquest and Serpent's Head threads... which no longer exist for probably good reason), and the other is a full on crossover done in a Super Robot Wars style. I'll share a few details if anyone is interested, but for the most part probably not starting the mega-threads that I used to do.

[taalismn]

I do indeed remember RM Conquest and Serpents Head sounds familiar.....

[DairuggerXV]

Serpent's Head was one where I explored the idea of the SDF-3 time traveling to become the SDF-1, it got stupid and crazy. But to keep the topic at hand I have been tinkering with an SRW-like crossover. Ancient past: Voltron earns its legend using some people from Earth, before it disappears and the AI in Voltron creates the Generation System to monitor the universe and attempt course corrections without the ever present threat of a supremely powerful super robot spanking the bad guys. Zor meets Gravion's Sandman during his journey and learns a bit from him. The SDF-1 contains warnings of the Muge Empire Genocidron and Robotech Masters, not the Invid (mostly because the Regess at this point is mostly nursing a wounded heart, and the Regent has made the Invid a client state of the Muge). The Global Civil War looks like half of Gundam's One Year War, except switch Amuro Ray and Char Aznable with Roy Fokker and TR Edwards. The Muge Empire and Masters are at war with each other, so when the Zentreadi show up, so do the Muge. While the Zentreadi chase the SDF-1, the Muge invade Earth proper. It's a lot to explain.

The other Robotech project I'm working on is basically what I would do if I had to reboot the franchise. Making one complete narrative whole inspired by the OSM without being bound to any of it. Perhaps the biggest change there is I'm making Minmei replace Khyron as the post-Rain of Death threat.

[xunk16]

Serpent's Head was one where I explored the idea of the SDF-3 time traveling to become the SDF-1, it got stupid and crazy. But to keep the topic at hand I have been tinkering with an SRW-like crossover. Ancient past: Voltron earns its legend using some people from Earth, before it disappears and the AI in Voltron creates the Generation System to monitor the universe and attempt course corrections without the ever present threat of a supremely powerful super robot spanking the bad guys. Zor meets Gravion's Sandman during his journey and learns a bit from him. The SDF-1 contains warnings of the Muge Empire Genocidron and Robotech Masters, not the Invid (mostly because the Regess at this point is mostly nursing a wounded heart, and the Regent has made the Invid a client state of the Muge). The Global Civil War looks like half of Gundam's One Year War, except switch Amuro Ray and Char Aznable with Roy Fokker and TR Edwards. The Muge Empire and Masters are at war with each other, so when the Zentreadi show up, so do the Muge. While the Zentreadi chase the SDF-1, the Muge invade Earth proper. It's a lot to explain.

The other Robotech project I'm working on is basically what I would do if I had to reboot the franchise. Making one complete narrative whole inspired by the OSM without being bound to any of it. Perhaps the biggest change there is I'm making Minmei replace Khyron as the post-Rain of Death threat.

I nominate this the wildest Robotech post I have ever read.

[taalismn]

Perhaps the biggest change there is I'm making Minmei replace Khyron as the post-Rain of Death threat.

I toyed with the idea of a post-Martian Invasion Earth where an imperial system of government took hold on Earth, and the British Royal Navy became the model of the combined militaries. There was still the opportunity for promotion from below, and gaining a title was just as important as attaining rank. The world aristocracies effectively merged, with African and Asian nobility gaining as much rights and prestige as the European blue-blood, but there was also prestige in sponsoring talent from the lower social classes(on account of so many upperclassmen dying in the Martian Wars. There was also some flavor of the CoDominium 'verse. Earth moved past the steampunk era and entered the Electronic Age fairy quickly and began carving out a colonial empire fueled, in part, by reverse-engineered alien technologies(Martian, Mi-go, etc.).
Gloval was Lord Admiral Gloval. Lynn Minmei was an (much more cold and killer) Honor Harrington-style hotspur who had already made captain and was effectively in charge of a fleet cruiser element. Rick Hunter was her CAG. Lisa Hayes was the daughter of Grand Senator Donald Hayes who was being influenced/enabling T.R. Edwards, claiming to be a nationalist railing against the Imperial system, but actually looking to carve out an empire for himself(Lisa is the damsel in distress/hostage in this one). The main narrative arc was going to be Edwards' treason, but the Zentraedi and the Robotech Masters would show up in time to run into Legend of the Galactic Heroes-style layers of fleets,

[dataweaver]

I have two preferences: the first involves “crossovers” with the anime franchises that Robotech was based on:

From Macross, I expand the Expeditionary Force from “the SDF-3” to many SDFs: something resembling Macross DYRL, Macross Plus, Macross 7, Macross Frontier, and Macross Delta are part of the timeline, alongside Robotech II: the Sentinels and the Shadow Chronicles. This involves removing Max and Miriya from the Sentinels; but given the larger role they play in Macross 7, and the fact that Sentinels is primarily about the Hunters vs. Edwards, it's not as much of a problem as you might suppose at first.

A version of Robotech: the Movie is part of this, though I go closer to the original concept that Macek originally wanted to try: it actually takes place in the colony ship accompanying the SDF-3 during its long Trek out to Tirol. And there are no Robotech Masters involved in the plot; in fact, it doesn't even feature B.D. Andrews or Mark Landry: I heard somewhere that T.R. Edwards, Karen Penn, and Jack Baker from the Sentinels we're originally supposed to be the stars of Robotech: the Movie. I don't know if it's true or not; but I like it, so in my version, it's Jack Baker vs. T.R. Edwards. And it serves as a prequel to the Sentinels.

Without having to worry about licensing restrictions, I don't bother using the Alpha, Beta, and Cyclone as the mecha for Hunter's expedition; at least not at first. Instead, they feature the VF-3 Lightning and the MODAT, as well as a Veritech tank design using Megaroad 23 Mecha aesthetics, and the Destroid designs from Robotech Art 3: the Sentinels. Over the subsequent decades, Mospeada-inspired designs gradually replaced these, until Scott Bernard's returning force is entirely Mospeada-inspired. This includes the Destroid designs from the Mospeada concept art found in the Imai files.

I'm not quite sure how to work this part in; but the Southern Cross Imai files suggest that the original concept for the show involved feuding clans in a kinda-sorta regressed society that features robot horses and robot falcons and armored soldiers, but no giant mecha. I'm considering the possibility that in the chaos after the end of the Second Robotech War, a lot of the Armies of the Southern Cross were evacuated from Earth; a misjump occurred, and a sizeable contingent of the ASC found itself stranded on the alien world of Glorie, in the distant past (about a century back in time). Over the next century they developed a society that vaguely resembles a mechanized version of feudal Japan.

Finally, I've considered incorporating Super Dimension Century Orguss into the lineup in some manner. Not quite sure how; but the Orguss made a cameo in Macross, and Macross characters made cameos in Orguss. If it's possible to tie the two together, I'd like to see about doing that. Perhaps lean into the Orguss concept that spacetime weaponry have been developed, and Orguss mostly takes place in an alternate timeline created by said weaponry which eventually gets mostly reset to the original timeline…


My second preference is not so much Robotech as a Robotech-inspired setting. I've discussed it elsewhere, so I won't go into detail about it again here.

[DairuggerXV]

Truthfully most of my crossover events are "cameos" from other works of fiction. Mostly characters that have been Robotech-ized, occasionally the odd mecha if I need/want something that doesn't already exist. Me going for a Super Robot Wars treatment is not something I've ever actually done, and is something I am playing with now. SRW, for those that don't know, focuses primarily on "built world" crossovers, which is a fancy way of saying, what if Gundam and Robotech happened in the same universe? The people responsible for those games do an excellent job of exploring that angle. Most of my Robotech stuff is more "what if" affairs. Like "What if most of the Zentraedi had already defected, or were considering defecting, and Dolza's fleet was the last fleet loyal to the Masters, and Breetai and Azonia were both looking for a planet that they could adopt and rob the Masters of most of what remains of their Zentraedi fleet?

[taalismn]

Finally, I've considered incorporating Super Dimension Century Orguss into the lineup in some manner. Not quite sure how; but the Orguss made a cameo in Macross, and Macross characters made cameos in Orguss. If it's possible to tie the two together, I'd like to see about doing that. Perhaps lean into the Orguss concept that spacetime weaponry have been developed, and Orguss mostly takes place in an alternate timeline created by said weaponry which eventually gets mostly reset to the original timeline…

"Superdimensional' in the title of so many anime/manga is an open loophole to abuse...

[dataweaver]

“Super Dimension” was in the title of three series, all made by Studio Nue: Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Century Orguss, and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross. The three are considered a trilogy of sorts, though not in the conventional sense.

[glitterboy2098]

Finally, I've considered incorporating Super Dimension Century Orguss into the lineup in some manner. Not quite sure how; but the Orguss made a cameo in Macross, and Macross characters made cameos in Orguss. If it's possible to tie the two together, I'd like to see about doing that. Perhaps lean into the Orguss concept that spacetime weaponry have been developed, and Orguss mostly takes place in an alternate timeline created by said weaponry which eventually gets mostly reset to the original timeline…

"Superdimensional' in the title of so many anime/manga is an open loophole to abuse...

the natural place is after the end of the haydonite war.. with protoculture use highly restricted due to scarcity, post-invid earth might well have fallen back to older more conventional technologies and split into multiple rival factions, and the spacetime effecting weapons might have been derived from neutron-S warheads and shadowtech.

since the dimensional shattering seems to have a temporal element as much as a dimensional one (given the way

Spoiler:

the main char in orguss got pulled forward in time

, and some worlds that appear seem to be at earlier points in earth's timeline), so you could have robotech characters and hardware from all the previous era's appearing.

[DairuggerXV]

If I recall correctly, Jeanne Françaix/Dana Sterling makes a brief cameo in a slave/prison camp in the second half of the series. So that would check out.

[dataweaver]

As well, there's synergy to be had concerning Shadow Chronicles' Haydonites and Orguss's Mu. They even have not dissimilar appearances and attitudes. I might even go so far as to say that the Mu are the Haydonites.

Enough time would have to pass since Shadow Chronicles to see the building of a space elevator, and to see the Mospeada mecha largely phased out in favor of the Bronco and whatever the name is for the enemy Veritech seen in ep 1.

[dataweaver]

After being reminded of Revell's Robotech Defenders toy line, I'm thinking of expanding my “crossover” setting to also include a version of Fang of the Sun Dougram, transplanting the plot from the colony planet Deloyer to Earth in the years between Khyron's defeat and the rise of the Armies of the Southern Cross; in fact, I intend to reimagine it as telling the story of the formative days of what will eventually become the Masters Saga's United Earth Government, from the perspective of a faction of separatists calling themselves the Fang of the Sun.

The lack of Veritechs during this era gets chalked up to the Expeditionary Forces taking the bulk of protoculture supplies with them when they left Earth, and the remaining forces on Earth not yet having developed the necessary workarounds needed to make Veritech designs viable with protoculture now being extremely rare — a problem that has been resolved by the time of the Second Robotech War.

So, in chronological order, kind of:
1. Macross Zero, taking place between the arrival of the SDF-1 and its final reconstruction and launch.
2. SDF Macross
3. Macross: DYRL (the Hunter Expedition departs Earth)
4a. Fang of the Sun Dougram (Earth)
4b. Macross Plus (on Eden)
4c. Megazone 23 (the Hunter Expedition)
5a. SDC Southern Cross (Earth)
5b. Macross 7 (the Sterling Expedition)
5c. Robotech II: the Sentinels (the Hunter Expedition)
6. Mospeada (Earth)

…and from here on, Dimensional Weapons get introduced and “chronological order” becomes a bit harder to manage: the Haydonites betray the Earth Reclamation Forces as detailed in Shadow Chronicles, and Admiral Hunter's flagship goes missing in time, kicking off Robotech III: Odyssey. A decade or two later, Earth has built a space elevator, and a rebel faction detonates a Dimensional Bomb there in an attempt to take it down. This leads to the events of SDC Orguss, which eventually ends in a temporal reset where the Dimensional Bomb doesn't get donated. Meanwhile, in Sentinel Space, two series of events take place; though how they align with the events on Earth, I'm unsure, beyond the fact that they happen after the Shadow Chronicles conclude: namely, Macross Frontier and Macross Delta.