by the fans for the fans

Occasionally, regardless of the subseries, some poster seems to question certain strategies in the Robotech universe, at which a discussion starts. One recurring discussion seems to be: 'Why bother to send the REF on the Pioneer Mission to Tirol if Earth can hardly defend itself at all?'

Just wanted to share something I found out recently. For reasons not Robotech related at all, I read a biography of French general and later president Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970).

Apparently the prefered military strategy for most of the ninteenth century was the offensive. Go in there fast with large numbers, strike and get out of there. A logical course of action for cavalry (especially when they still used horses) and very effective (especially for Western colonial foces against colonial locals).
Some officers were wondering if such an approach was still the best with all the new technological developments of the age. Would barb wire and machine guns not give defensive strategies the upper hand? But military high commands can be very set in their ways - the high death tolls of World War I being the evidence.

At some point, one independent minded officer officer called Philippe Pétain, a long time advocate of shifting the focus on defense, was put in charge of the French forces at the battle of Verdun (1916). He put his ideas into practice... and won! Afterwards, the defensive became the main strategy of the French army, creating the Magilot Line in the thirties: defensive lines at the borders.

That decade, another independent minded officer, of a younger generation, questioned this one-sided focus on the defensive. It would mean that the French army lost the initiative to possible assailants. It also meant loss of freedom to move operations elsewhere, for instance to aid allies abroad. But young De Gaulle was talking to deaf ears...

All I'm saying: there are as many arguments in favour of the Pioneer Mission as against it.

(keep in mind that Europe after WW I was quite devastated, not unlike post-Zentraedi War Earth)

These scenarios come up all the time in Starcraft. Generally, if you're just sitting around defending your base (aka "turtling") then you're setting yourself up to lose. The converse of this, of course, is that if your offense isn't strong enough to survive and win on its own, then you're throwing way what little military power you have in a pointless campaign, and then you are even worse off than before.

So yeah, it could be argued either way really.

Come to think of it, something that occurs often in games of Starcraft is known as "base trading". Essentially, Player A leaves his base to attack Player B's base, and Player B leaves his base to attack Player A's base. If the two armies don't meet along the way, then they can destroy each other's bases, and rebuild their own bases at those locations. So they are now occupying each other's original base locations.

This is essentially what happened in Robotech. The RDF arrived at Tirol and occupied it, the Masters arrived at Earth and occupied it.

Well Earth, of course, eventually managed to barely defeat the Masters, but then the Invid swooped right on in and took over. So it was a proxy base trade.

In Starcraft, you're just playing with clone soldiers or whatever they are. But in Robotech, they were abandoning real human lives. Such a decision should not be made lightly or arbitrarily.

I noticed that on this site and others - and especially in reviews of 'R II: The Sentinels' on sites that are not specifically about Robotech - people either appreciated the mission to Tirol or considered it ridiculous considering the damage done to Earth and/or the very likely threath of a Robotech Master attack. I was about to believe that I only accepted the mission because I like Sentinels so much. So I was glad to stumble on a similar discussion that had actually existed in real life.

People who aren't fan of superheroes, SF, fantasy or anime often argue that those kinds of fiction have too many assumptions taken for granted to be plausible and/or interesting (an argument that in my humble opinion can be used to take the feet under the chairs of just any kind of fiction. Take 'Dallas': two ADULT brothers who can't get along and still live in their parents' home with their wives?). I find that the stories I appreciate tend to be those that have people react as people are likely to react in certain circumstances, even if the setting is an imaginative one.

Back on topic: that same biography touched upon a situation at a later point in Robotech chronology. Just before the French government capitulated, heated discussions took place in cabinet. The prime minister and some others wanted to evacuate the government and all armed forces that had not surrendered to Algeria. Algeria at that time was not just a Frenc colony, it was considered a province of France. That way the French could continue fighting. The majority however prefered surrendering and making an agreement with the Germans - which lead to the infamous Vichy government.

De Gaulle happened to be not just among the minority (he had been made a member of cabinet just two weeks before the fall of France), with the blessing of the now former prime minister he flew to Londen and on June 18 1940 made a television speech encouraging the French to keep on fighting.

Lots of parallels with Mospeada/Next Generation !!!