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Ok, so the Zentraedi attack on Earth would be a lot more devastating than depicted in the show; the Zentraedi-bombardment on a global-scale would start massive fires around the Earth; so many that similar to the KT-impact, 65MYA (the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), the dust and smoke would block out the sun for months, thereby causing a mass-extinction. So, the ENTIRE food-chain would be disrupted and the only source of food, for humans, would be storage-food. Secondly, any surviving Zentraedi would face starvation unless they found a crashed Zentraedi-ship with enough food supply for them. The calorie-requirements would be huge. So, the Aftermath of the attack would be an Earth, blanketed in ash and dust, with everything burnt, and giant, roaming Zentraedi eating everything and everyone they can find, until they collapse of starvation, and leave massive rotting-corpses all over the place.

"This has 'Attack on Titan' written all over it."

The attack was made with laser type weapons.
Targeting looked pretty random in the series. So a lot of water mas would also be hit.
Lasers would just evaporate the water. creating a lot of rain. Drenching a lot of fire. No tidal wave..
Lasers also do not throw up dust, so it would only be smoke that blocked the sun.

An asteroid would throw dust way higher then smoke would ever get, so the problems of a laser attack would be way less.

Still a vallid point, but there is a lot of stuff working against it.
If the Zentreadi did target just city's the dammage throug fires would also be way less.. Lots of concrete, stone and asfalt to melt.

sanka wrote:The attack was made with laser type weapons.
Targeting looked pretty random in the series. So a lot of water mas would also be hit.
Lasers would just evaporate the water. creating a lot of rain. Drenching a lot of fire. No tidal wave..
Lasers also do not throw up dust, so it would only be smoke that blocked the sun.

An asteroid would throw dust way higher then smoke would ever get, so the problems of a laser attack would be way less.

Still a vallid point, but there is a lot of stuff working against it.
If the Zentreadi did target just city's the dammage throug fires would also be way less.. Lots of concrete, stone and asfalt to melt.

More accurately, particle beam type weapons, not lasers, so there would be alot of radiation and heat thrown about. Also those ship carry a lot of missiles (non-nuclear fortunatly) which would ikely be used in the bombardment as well.

Zentready sourcebook specifies laser weapons.... Frontal and turret.
And each ship fires multiple weapons... That can't be other than the lasers..

And in the series no missiles can be seen... (but that's not saying much..)

The RPG, which is non-canon, (especially the first edition Robotech books) uses laser weapons. The show has them use reflex weaponry (the original Macross uses reaction weapons).

sanka wrote:Zentready sourcebook specifies laser weapons.... Frontal and turret.
And each ship fires multiple weapons... That can't be other than the lasers..

And in the series no missiles can be seen... (but that's not saying much..)

That would be the 1E RPG though where the Zentreadi weapons are lasers (aside from the Missile Launchers and Heavy Particle Beam cannon), in the 2E RPG it is a mix of Laser (CIWS) or Particle Beam (anti-ship) weapons (and RT.com Infopedia put them down as laser/particle beams so in canon it might be some hybrid system).

camk4evr wrote:Also those ship carry a lot of missiles (non-nuclear fortunatly) which would ikely be used in the bombardment as well.

Why? The beam weapons those ships have are likely just as effective and can't be shot down. Though IIRC some weapon systems are "missiles" officially, but in the animation they look like (curving) beam weapons.

the only weapons we see fired in that sequence are the type of weapons similar to the SDF-1's main gun. what they show and RPG refer to as Reflex Cannons. from the Canon comic descriptions, and the RPG's the closest real world weapon would be a Particle Beam. just one of very immense power.
it is worth keeping in mind that the RPG has only a little leeway when it comes to depicting the outcome of the bombardment. the Show does not depict the kinds of climatilogical effects we might expect of such a massively powerful bombardment, nor does it mention the kinds of ecological problems the world would face. and while it mentions efforts at replanting and ecosystem reconstruction, it is presented in an offhand manner with the suggestion such efforts are still limited. (yet we still see many areas with mostly intact ecological habitats, suggesting the bombardment was not as total in some parts of the world. the survival of an entire major urban area in New York [including Manhattan and much of the surrounding areas] suggests that the bombardment was probably not precisely targeted)
the RPG thus can only elaborate as long as the result allows the conditions seen in the show to exist without contrivance. so while it would obviously be a mass extinction event, you would not be looking at any kind of massive smoke clouds or phytoplankton die off resulting in a totally collapsed global ecosystem.
(it also worth pointing out that the wildfire hypothesis is heavily debates, as chemical analysis of the sediments on the K-T boundry do not show the kinds of globally elevated carbon proportions you'd expect from global wildfires.)


in regards to ship weapons: the 2nd ed RPG more or less accurately reflects HG's translation of the show in regards to the other weaponry as well. Particle beams for the main anti-ship weaponry (the big turrets of the destroyer and the 'nose guns' of the flagship for example), Large reflex warhead missiles/torpedoes in the bow, with laser turrets and small missiles for point defense. (i say more or less accurately because HG did not specify the size of the missiles fired by the missile turrets.. PB translated them as smaller missiles used for point defense, though their rate of fire seems oddly low for that role.)
while the RPG gives the anti-ship weapons sufficient range to do the job (as does the show), the fact is those weapons are far too weak compared to Reflex cannons to be worth using. after all, you had multiple zentraedi warships firing their anti-ship weapons in a bombardment of macross island for several minutes, and the result didn't even level the city.

" No tidal wave.."

Actually yes there would be...you vapourize millions and possibly billions of gallons of water instantly and the vaccuum in its place would most definitely cause multiple tsunami like events all of the planet.

In a properly realistic treatment, the earth is pretty well done after the Rain of Death. The only reason to be there is because you didn't manage to get on a ship elsewhere.

On the other hand, if we had done realism, there would be no veritechs or destroids, the super advanced technology of the SDF-1 going into making super tanks and hypersonic jet aerospace fighters instead.