The SDF-1 Macross (SDF-1 マクロス Esu Dī Efu Wan Makurosu) is the titular ship of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross television series, it's manga adaptation, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Macross Plus movies and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Flash Back 2012 and Macross Plus OVAs. It is a Macross-class Super Dimensional Fortress (超時空要塞 Chō Jikū Yōsai), the first of many in the Macross Timeline [1].
Technology & Combat Characteristics
The SDF-1 Macross is a Strong-Attack-Type Fortress Ship (要塞艦・強攻型 Yōsai-kan Kyōkō-gata), outfitted with the CVS-101 Prometheus and SLV-111 Daedalus as arms. It is also capable of housing a massive city within its hulls.
Armaments
Weapons
- OverTechnology Macross super-dimension-energy cannon with beam polarizing converging system (bow) x 1
- OverTechnology guided converging beam cannons x 8
- high speed 178 cm electro magnetic rail cannons x 4
- large automatic anti-ship missile launchers x many
- various missile emplacements x many
Mecha
Variable
- VF-1 Valkyrie x 212 (in February 2009, later replaced with VF-1 Super Valkyrie x 300+ by February 2010)
Non-Variable
Vehicles
- QF-3000E Ghost x 120
Docked Craft
- ARMD-class Space Carriers
- ARMD-01
- ARMD-02
- ARMD-03 Enterprise
- ARMD-04
- ARMD-05 AKAGI
- ARMD-06
- CVS-101 Prometheus (as the first ARMD Space carriers were battling the Zentradi, Captain Global decided to save the Prometheus that was floating in the orbit of Pluto and turn it into the left arm of the SDF-1)
- SLV-111 Daedalus (Just as the Prometheus became the left arm, the Daedalus became the right arm of the SDF-1 Macross)
Special Equipment & Features
- Pin-Point Barrier
- The Pin-Point Barrier was thought up by the Macross' Chief Engineer (SDFM: "Chief Engineer") (alt in SDFMTF: Gina Baltrow) after they discovered a distortion in the space-time continuum in the section of the ship where the fold-system that was lost during the jump to Pluto used to be. The Pin-Point Barrier serves as a shield for the Macross. However, as the Macross is too big to have all areas shielded simultaneously, each of three female operators; May, Pocky and Panapp use "trackballs" to move the Pin-Point Barrier to targeted regions of the ship. (SDFM: "Daedalus Attack")
History
Warning, Spoilers Ahead!
Supervision Army Usages
Long before it reached earth, the ship was a Gun Destroyer used by the Supervision Army - Protoculture and Zentradi that were brainwashed by the Protodevlin to fight the Stellar Republic. Centuries later, the Supervision army engages in conflict with Zentradi forces.
1999
On July 7, 1999 [2], the ship crashed on South Ataria Island, located at the extreme end of the "Ogasawara Island chain" in the Pacific Ocean. Inspection of the wreckage revealed that the spaceship was manned by giant aliens many times larger than humans and that their technology was centuries and probably millennia beyond that of Earth. The alien spaceship is revealed to be a war vessel. As a result of this, humanity realizes that there is a potential threat beyond Earth and some believed an international government should be established to unite the world against any hostile aliens. The crashed ship was rebuilt and a city, called Macross City, flourished around it. During the reconstruction, the huge ship was given the hull classification Alien Star Ship-1, abbreviated to ASS-1 (エイエスエス ワン Ei Esu Esu Wan). (Delta: "Eternal Songs") After completion the ship was re-classified as the "SDF-1 Macross" or "Super Dimensional Fortress-1 Macross".
2008
N/a
Space War I
On February 7, 2009, the SDF-1 Macross was to embark on its maiden voyage [3]. In the morning, the Space Defense Council (among them, Captain Global) were discussing that should the Macross encounter an alien species, under no circumstances will Earth initiate any hostilities. However, they did not anticipate the Zentradi warrior race who had been tracking the Macross's D-Fold signature to Earth, according to Exsedol Folmo. A fleet led by Vrlitwhai Kridanik arrived in the orbit of Earth. Vrlitwhai sent a Picket Patrol Ship closer to the planet because he found it suspicious that there was no sign of a re-fold, believing it should had left the Solar System 8 terms ago (some time after 1999). However, the Supervision Army had installed an automatic defense system aboard it, a "boobytrap" according to Captain Bruno J. Global, and so the SDF-1 Macross automatically transformed into firing mode despite attempts by Claudia LaSalle to shut it down. Its main cannon activated, sending a beam across the pacific water into space and which destroyed two Picket Patrol Ships (one more had been sent), thus confirming Vrlithwai's that the ship of their enemies was indeed on the planet below. (SDFM: "Boobytrap")
Later that day, during the calm before the battle, it turned out that the Reaction Weaponry ARMD-01 used on the Thuverl-Salan-class Battleships rendered the Macross's radar ineffective. Because of this, 24 additional UFOs on a descent vector couldn't be detected by First Lieutenant Vanessa Laird before then. Captain Global realized that the first wave was just a decoy and complemented the Zentradi's ingenuity. Captain Global asked First Lieutenant Hayase if Focker's squadron could come back to guard the Macross but he couldn't as he was still fighting off the first wave and couldn't break away yet. Vanessa reported that the 24 targets have splashed down in the sea 30 clicks ahead of them, so Global gives orders to call the CVS-101 Prometheus to send some patrol helicopters.
2031
In the Do You Remember Love?, a fictional movie macross universe movie that chronicles the events of Space War I, the SDF-1 was a female Zentradi (Meltandi) gun destroyer that crashes on Earth after being chased by the male Zentradi (as opposed to the original series where the SDF-1 was a Supervision army ship fighting male and female Zentradi alike). Since the Zentradi and the Meltlandi have already been at war for hundreds of thousands of years, its presence on Earth after being rebuilt cause the Zentradi fleet to destroy the world's surface as soon as it is discovered, some time before the beginning of the film.
Like the Supervision army ship in the original television series, this Meltran Gun Destroyer was also given the temporary designation "Alien Starship One" or "ASS-1".
The SDF-1 Macross folds away from Earth just as the Zentradi attack and begins its journey back to the planet to investigate what happened [note 1]. The movie version SDF-1 ship also had ARMD-class space carriers attached to the main ship at the time it was built, as opposed to the TV series where the space carriers are supposed to join the ship in Earth's orbit [4]
.
2040
The SDF-1 under the control of Sharon Apple
In 2040, the virtual idol AI Sharon Apple attains sentience, and during festivities marking the 30th anniversary the treaty between Earth and the Zentradi that ended Space War I. She hacks into the systems of the entire Earth defense network, which included the original SDF-1 Macross. During this incident, Sharon Apple causes Macross to briefly launch from the artificial lake that it has rested in since 2010. Furthermore, Sharon Apple uses its abilities and the SDF-1 Macross' communications facilities to attempt to control the minds of nearly everyone on Earth. However, U.N. Spacy pilots Isamu Alva Dyson and Guld Goa Bowman and civilian Myung Fang Lone are able to defuse the incident, destroying Sharon Apple in the process. (Plus: "It's Time to End This")
2059
In 2059, during a flight across the skies of Galia 4, Alto Saotome and Ranka Lee make an emergency landing and discovered the wreckage of a first-generation Macross-class ship designated as SDFN-4 Global, which belonged to the New U.N. Spacy 117th Large Scale Research Fleet. This ship closely resembles the Macross as it appeared in 2040 during the events of Macross Plus. This suggests the original Macross design was put into production at least 20 years previous of the Macross Frontier fleet's launch (as seen in episode 13, "Memory of Global"). A glimpse of Earth's Macross City appears, showing that the original SDF-1 Macross ship still sits in its center and continues to fulfill its assigned task of planetary defense. (F: "Your Sound")
2068
Planet Earth where Macross City and SDF-1 Macross sit is among 4 planets shown in Macross Gigasion being affected by fold emitted from Protoculture ruins controlled by Yami Q Ray.
List of UN Squadrons
2009-2012
- Skull Squadron
- Angelbird Squadron
- Apollo Squadron
List of Crew Members
2009-2012
- Bruno J. Global
- Misa Hayase
- Claudia LaSalle
- Roy Focker
- Hikaru Ichijo
- Maistroff
- Hayao Kakizaki
- Maximilian Jenius
- Milia Fallyna Jenius
- Kim Kabirov
- Shammy Milliome
- Vanessa Laird
Picture Gallery
.gif "SDF-1 Cruiser (Left).gif (69 KB)")
See also
Toys
Notes & Trivia
See also: Macross and Super Dimensional Fortress
- Mechanical designer Kazutaka Miyatake of Studio Nue designed the original SDF-1 design for the first series. "SDF" (Super Dimensional Fortress) refers to the ship being a maneuverable space fortress capable of making space folds; traveling in subspace for faster-than-light movement.
- The original name for the Macross project was Battle City Megaroad (or Battle City Megaload, as the Japanese transliteration to either "L" or "R" gives the title a double meaning in reference to the story line: Megaload, referring to the spacecraft containing an entire city of people; and Megaroad, referring to the long journey through space back to Earth). According Noboru Ishiguro, the producer for the sponsor was a fan of Shakespeare, and insisted on naming the original series and ship Macbeth (マクベス Makubesu). Studio Nue and Artland regrouped and proposed the title Macross (マクロス Makurosu) because it has a similar pronunciation to Macbeth in Japanese and is also a wordplay on "Macro" and "Across", allowing the new name to retain the connotations of largeness and journeying possessed by the original title, Megaroad [3].
- On the 14th July 2015, New Horizons spacecraft was the first to get detailed and accurate measurements and also a load of observations of Pluto and Charon. The regions were given names from popular science fiction franchises, one of the chasms on Charon was named the "Macross Chasma" [5].
Footnotes
- ↑ The events prior to the film are shown in new footage created for a videogame based on the film adaptation released in Japan in the late 1990s.
References
- ↑ Macross Perfect Memory Page 140
- ↑ Macross TV Series Liner Notes
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Macross TV Series Liner Notes | AnimEigo
- ↑ The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love?
- ↑ moviepilot.com
External links
| Macross Plus Mechanics | |
|---|---|
| U.N. Spacy | |
| Mecha | |
| Variable Fighter VF-1J Valkyrie | VF-11B Thunderbolt | VF-11B Super Thunderbolt | VF-14 Vampire | YF-19 | YF-21 | |
| Vehicles and Support Units Drone Fighter | X-9 Ghost | |
| Cruiser / Mother Ship Guantanamo-class | SDF-1 Macross | Northampton-class | SB-10/10 Starwing | Uraga-class | |
 For the Robotech equivalent, visit SDF-1. |