It's interesting to note that the beginning of Robotech and the graphic novel Watchmen actually share a premise: an alien presence causing destruction brings the warring human powers together for peace. Though Robotech and Watchmen came out at about the same time, the Japanese series Macross existed a little before that, so I guess they got the idea first.
In Watchmen the former hero Ozymandias turns supervillain by staging an alien attack to fool the superpowers into averting nuclear war to work together against a common threat. In Robotech the arrival of the SDF-1 is actually a very real alien invasion.
In the books it's mentioned that if the SDF-1 hadn't arrived, some of Earth's leaders might have pulled an Ozymandias of their own. But with the SDF-1's arrival they didn't need to. Instead the politicians of the warring factions bound together and formed the United Earth Defense Council. It was a united government for Earth that focused on restoring the SDF-1 and preparing for a Zentraedi invasion. Not that they really planned to. For the leaders of the United Earth Defense Council that was something they figured would never happen in their lifetimes, like how our current "leadership" feels about global warming. It was just a way for them to get power.
Anyway, the Zentraedi did come and the SDF-1 wound up jumping to Pluto. Which for the UEDC was a good thing as the Zentraedi had no interest in Earth itself. Thus for them the problem was pretty much solved. They actually told the media and such that there hadn't been any invasion by aliens; the SDF-1 was sabotaged by some rogue element and the people of Macross all killed. The area was made a no-fly zone because of deadly radiation so no one could go see the damage. Problem solved!
At least until the SDF-1 came back to Earth. They were at first ordered away from Earth but eventually Captain Gloval brought the ship down anyway. Still the government didn't want to break the news to the people of Earth, not until Gloval began flying the SDF-1 over cities to alert people that they were in fact not dead.
After meeting with Gloval and Lisa Hayes, the UEDC ordered the ship to leave again and given what happened, they were probably right. The Zentraedi didn't want Earth. Maybe if the SDF-1 had just surrendered they would have gone away forever. Or the Robotech Masters might have sent them back later. So in a way they were right, though for the wrong reasons.
One problem for the UEDC is that when the SDF-1 left it took most of the Robotech technology with it, including the genius Dr. Lang. So there wasn't a lot of preparation they could do except for the boondoggle of the "Grand Cannon." It was a Starkiller Base type thing, a huge gun powered by Earth itself. The obvious problem is the gun was built in Alaska and so it couldn't hit a lot except from that angle. The books mention there were supposed to be mirrors built but there wasn't time for that. There was also a second one being built in South America but it didn't get too far.
The original United Earth Defense Council was destroyed when Dolza razed the planet. After a couple of years with Gloval and the SDF-1 basically in charge, a new government, the United Earth Government, was formed. This was supposed to mollify the Robotech Defense Force and Army of the Southern Cross, but eventually, once the SDF-3 left with most of the RDF leadership, the remainder of the RDF was turned into the Global Military Police and the Southern Cross became the UEG's military.
The UEG was wiped out after the Robotech Masters and then the Invid came. With the Invid in charge there were only city-states, no organized government. Elements of the REF tried to form a new government once the Invid were gone and while the SDF-3 was stranded in "newspace" a new government was formed, though one less corrupt than the old regimes.
In the books the head of the UEDC--Alfredo Russo--survives the first war but becomes a mindwiped henchman for Dr. Lazlo Zand. After Zand dies, Russo wanders around with no memory, pretty much a zombie.
A Fun Fact is in the TV show written on stuff is "UN Spacy" which I guess is what the United Earth Defense Council and Robotech Defense Force was actually supposed to be called. Or something.
2 comments:
The idea of a United earth government or force is a pretty common idea in science fiction but it sounds like the one in Robotech was more thought out than most
It would not have occurred to me to compare Watchmen with Robotech.
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