by the fans for the fans

Interesting turn this topic of mine is getting

Untill proven otherwise, it is save to assume individuals cannot decide in advance in which family or society they will be born. What the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters and the Invid may have done might be considered evil, but you cannot blame individual members of those species for being a Zentraedi, Tirolian or Invid.

Whatever you think of Stalin or Putin, you cannot blame someone for being Russian. But you can blame individual Russian officers, soldiers or operatives for using unnecessary violence, especially when they were not ordered to do so.
Or take the US army: was dropping atomic bombs on Japan in WW II a war crime or did it prevent even more people dying from conventional warfare? But whatever the final judgement will be on the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I cannot find a rational and certainly not a moral justification for the treatment of prisoners of war in the Abu Graib prison.

Let's assume that postmodernists are right in their assumption that 'good' or 'evil' are merely the subjective results of narratives and that social scientistst are right in assuming 'good' and 'evil' depend on living up to cultural standards (anthropologists) or social norms (sociologists), what do you make of individuals who do not live by those standards?

All Zentraedi were members of the Zentraedi army, the Invid live in hives - neither society leaves much room for individual opinion making, let alone critisizing the way things go.

But among Zentraedi, following orders must be a very important value - one Khyron violates all the time.
Even when told the SDF-1 contains information essential for the survival of the Zentraedi, he still tries to destroy it. Prisoners might provide intelligence, but he prefers killing - he always puts his own desires before the common good of the Zentraedi.
His single-minded obession with destruction and killing - both ends in itself, as far as he is concerned - suggests he is a psychopath or a sociopath.

Dolsa could have tried to intimidate his three micronian prisoners (# 11) in several ways - yet the first thing he does, as by impulse, is ordering the destruction of a planet that has nothing to do with the Earth-Zentraedi conflict.

Khyron and Dolsa can be considered evil, also from the Zentraedi point of view.

That we are having this conversation about the Macross Saga I find highly ironic, because that was the entire POINT of the Macross Saga. The RDF and Breetai's fleet had so many misconceptions about each other, yet when they finally sat down face to face they came to find out they actually were very much alike.

Alpha Bravo wrote: You simply cannot make generic blanket statements that say the {behaviors} and personality traits of an individual are shared unanimously across an entire race as a whole.

You seem to be under some misconception that the Zentraedi ARE some sweet little race, raised by sweet lil mumy and then recruited, when they grow up, to go help fight a war, and defend people. As I explained before - THEY ARE NOT. They are Weapons of Conquest. They are Tyrolean genetic material, Genetically modified to produce fully grown, Giant soldiers with completely blank brains. Then the eugenic control computer programs in what the Masters designed it to. They have NO social life. They eat only grey, tasteless. reconstituted nutrient past. They have NO inter-gender relations/interaction, asides from combat transmissions. The females live on different ships and do not cross over to male ships. They do what they are PROGRAMED to do. That's it. They are no more a "race" than the QF-3000 "Ghost" Drone Fighter. The only difference is that one is metal and plastic the other is protein and water. They are, as designed, a biologically based WEAPON SYSTEM, that's all they are. Yes, If you were to define (for example) Windows OS as being "an evil program" then basically every member of the PC "race" would be "Evil", by definition, because they all run on that set of programming. If a virus went in and rewrote the OS to a different program, then the resulting PC would be subject to debate. Until then they would all be "evil", as produced, they are all WINDOWS. The Masters PROGRAMMED them to be Evil, like themselves.
Now, they do have human like brains? Can take in, store and process information? They can evaluate and act on that information for themselves. Which turned out to be their main drawback, for their designed purpose. As they became "corrupted" by human interaction, the programming (of the evil - kill destroy conquer WEAPON SYSTEM) began to be overwritten by the "computer virus" of human emotions and Breetai, Exedore, Miriya, the 3 Recon pilots, lots of others, even Azonia to some degree. changed from being "Biologically based Weapons" to actually being people, with emotions. That was what the whole "being contaminated by micronians" was about. That's when some of them changed to good, and some to evil. In Azonia's case, she had the potential to be good. She found love, for Kyron. But, instead of her love for him changing him to good, his love for violence, mirrored in her own clone programming, influenced her to evil. If she had been captured, and taken in by a human Male, and Miriya had taken her place and fallen for Kyron, The same outcomes would have occurred in reverse, with Miriya riding to her death at Kyron's side. They were both Officer clones and had the same initial "weapon" programming.
THAT was the WHOLE point of the ENTIRE show! Did you not get it? They (some anyway) broke their evil programming, to turn good. That was the whole point of them bombarding Earth and killing billions of human being, as just so many 'pests'. It was meant to show that "YES, they are by their programmed nature EVIL! And Chief among them is Dolza." That's what the writers meant. It's about redemption. Saying "they weren't all evil" belittles the whole theme.


read: "Zentraedi (Robotech RPG Book #3)" www.amazon.com/Zentraedi-Robotech-RPG-Book-3/dp/0916211223
and: "Ghost Ship (Robotech RPG Adventures)" www.amazon.com/Ghost-Ship-Robotech-RPG-Adventures/dp/0916211290
They will give you more incite into the Zentraedi.
Also "Ref Field Guide (Robotech II)" www.amazon.com/Ref-Field-Guide-Robotech-...1RD2JHQ2670RYAWWAJH7
has details about the Robotech Factory and how it operates.

Alpha Bravo wrote: That didn't make the Genie evil, either.

It does if he slaughters several billion innocent people, without a second thought, to do it!

btw; Your argument does apply to the basic Tyrolean citizen (as seen in The Sentinels as well as, to some lesser degree Southern Cross) or to the Zentraedi progenitors in Macross (the original & Macross II - not the same universe as Robotech), as I said it did before.

There was no need for modern, state-of-the-art Bioroids on the city's streets, because they had massive Zentraedi fleets patrolling and protecting Tiresian space. Just because they were not in plain sight, does not mean that they were not actively protecting the planet. It wasn't until the time of the Sentinels that the Invid were able to invade and run amok in the streets, and why was that? Because the Masters had sent the main Zentraedi fleet to Earth, in a last-ditch effort to claim the Protoculture Factory, leaving Tirol itself vulnerable.

In Episode 36 of the original Macross (before it became part of Robotech), Misa wanted to to into space, not to find any Robotech Masters, but to colonize humans far away from the Zentraedi. She was afraid that the Zentraedi would be the end of humanity. She played the same role in the story that you are playing here, now, on the forums: attributing characteristics of individuals such as Khyron, to the entire Zentraedi race as a whole.

Alpha Bravo wrote: ... attributing characteristics of individuals such as Khyron, to the entire Zentraedi race as a whole.

Where are you getting this? The Zentraedi are not some 'poor misunderstood race' They are not really a "race" at all! "...all members of the Zentraedi were artificially created through cloning." They are a "GUN" "the Zentraedi were mainly used to subjugate worlds in the name of the Masters' Empire and destroy any opposition that might threaten their dominance" As I said before, they are like a drone fighter "the Zentraedi were forbidden culture, and were instilled with orders to never interfere with culture-bearing planets and civilizations, again apparently to suppress independent thought and keep an iron loyalty in all the Zentraedi forces" "the Robotech Masters limited their psychological and cultural development so that their entire population would believe that they existed only to wage war". Plane and Simple. I am not "attributing" anything, that is what the text says they are.

Another plothole occured to me. The last six episodes, Khyron is leading an organised rebellion. So why are Exedore and Breetai never consulted on how to handle him? Breetai and most of his crew did not micronize and their ship is still functioning. Surely they would have been able to aprehend Khyron and then forcefully micronize the rebels? Miryia, Exedore and Breetai certainly would have been best suited to profile Khyron and project his most likely course of action.

Exedore considered Khyron instable and unreliable from the start. Breetai probably regretted calling him for back-up on more than one occasion. If they could fight there own kind to conquer the factory satelite, surely they would have been willing to take Khyron out once and for all.

Peter Young wrote: Another plothole occured to me. The last six episodes, Khyron is leading an organised rebellion. So why are Exedore and Breetai never consulted on how to handle him? Breetai and most of his crew did not micronize and their ship is still functioning. Surely they would have been able to aprehend Khyron and then forcefully micronize the rebels? Miryia, Exedore and Breetai certainly would have been best suited to profile Khyron and project his most likely course of action.

Exedore considered Khyron instable and unreliable from the start. Breetai probably regretted calling him for back-up on more than one occasion. If they could fight there own kind to conquer the factory satelite, surely they would have been willing to take Khyron out once and for all.

Oh, That's an easy one.
At the time, Kyron was considered a minor nascence. he was hiding in the jungle somewhere, unknown. the Earth was strewn with literally thousands of crashed Zentraedi ships. Which one was his base? They are all wrecked and non-operational. The Zentraedi were not programmed with ANY repair skills what-so-ever. You remember when Max flew his VF through Breetai's Flag Bridge and shattered the glass bubble? After that you never saw It get repaired, the bubble was always jagged shards after that. It's not because he wanted it that way, they didn't know how to replace it, NO mechanical or electrical skills what-so-ever! That's what the repair/construction drones on the Robotech Factory are for. ALL Zentraedi repair and maintenance has to be done at a Factory Station (Sentinels book II REF Field Guide pg110) They can do NO repair on their own.
So, even if Kyron had one of those wrecked spaceships as a base, he couldn't use it, he can't repair it. so let the regular RDF ground troops do their job and systematically search all those wrecked ships till they clear them all out and secure the equipment. (where the EBSIS got a lot of their stash) The bigger threat was the Robotech Masters. without their Zentraedi army to do their dirty-work for them, they will come looking for whatever-it-is on the SDF-1 that was so important to them. Breetai and Exedore were busy with RDF high command coming up with the whole REF/expedition-to-Tyrol plan. before a fleet of RM Motherships show up in orbit here. What they didn't count on was human assistance, through kidnapping/intimidation or mercenary hiring (some of both) Kyron got his hands on a few human Mechanical/Electrical Engineers and they repaired a nearly serviceable ship for him, one he had located, using parts scavenged off other wrecks. That's why he attacked with only one ship, its all he managed to get cobbled together.

Just watching you guys go back and forth like


Loving the debate!

DR-052, you haven't convinced me there was no plothole. After all, there were already several Zentraedi reverting to their violent ways when Khyron got hold of the device that could turn micronized Zentraedi back to giants. From that moment on, Khyron could become a real threat. Him likely not even be able to leave Earth made him even more dangerous - he could only ventilate his anger on humans.

Besides, given the lack of means Earth had after the Zentraedi war, surely no one would like everything they just rebuild constantly attacked and destroyed by marauding Malcontents. Certainly the civilians would complain about the army not doing anything to prevent it. There is no point in going away on military expedition when your borders are not save or when you have an internal rebellion. Always secure homebase first.

If the military high command really reasoned they could take on the Robotech Masters without dealing with the uprising first - discontented Zentraedi would have been very likely to side with the Masters if they attacked -, then obviously all the competent military strategists had already perished during the rain of death.

The Sentinels-movie was more realistic in this regard: both Rick and general Leonard had second thoughts about dividing the forces and thereby leaving Earth more vulnerable for attack. And that was after Earth seemed to have been rebuild and apparently no Zentraedi rebels were left. That was not yet the case in episodes 27-36.

Yes, compared to the Masters, the Malcontents were a minor threath. But the Malcontents were a direct threath and a given reality, wereas the Masters were a likely but yet only potential danger. And Breetai's better equiped troops surely could win from the motley crew Khyron was trying to gather? Would almost be passtime while waiting for the SDF-2 to be finished.