SDF-1 Macross - Fictional Ship History

Fictional Ship History

In both the fictional Macross and Robotech continuities, a massive alien spaceship, 1210 meters (3,970 feet) long, crashes onto an unsuspecting Earth in the year 1999, on an island in the Pacific Ocean. In Macross, the island is called South Ataria Island, and is located at the extreme end of the "Ogasawara Island chain". In the Robotech Universe the island is known as Macross Island and is located in an unspecified area in the South Pacific. Inspection of the wreckage reveals that the spaceship was manned by giant aliens many times larger than humans and that their technology is 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 believe an international government should be established to unite the world against any hostile aliens. In Macross the action to unify the world under one government leads to a new world war, called the U.N. Wars, where hold-out nations fight but ultimately lose the battle to remain independent. In the introduction to Robotech episode 1, it's stated that Earth was embroiled in global war at the time of the crash and the discovery of life beyond the Earth puts and end to fighting due to a perceived common threat, the military conflicts become collectively known as the "Global Unification War".

The crashed ship is rebuilt and a city, called Macross City, flourishes around it. During the reconstruction, the huge ship is given the hull number SDF-1 for "first ship of the Super Dimension Fortress type" or "Super Dreadnought Fortress" and the name "Macross". Like most military designations in Macross, the ship's hull number formatting is based on that used by the United States Navy.

In 2009, now manned entirely by humans, the ship is prepared for its maiden voyage to seek out alien cultures and promote peace - its initial goal being never to start a fight. Giant alien humanoids called the Zentradi suddenly arrive in the Solar System with a force of several hundred ships, looking for the spacecraft they have been tasked with taking back (Robotech) or destroy (Macross). The SDF-1 turns out to be "booby trapped" (pre-programmed to fire its main gun at the Zentradi when detected). The human crew of the ship is unable to stop it from firing, forcing the humans to commit to war with the aliens. After a failed attempt to take off using its alien gravity control systems, which tear through the ship's hull and leaves it to fall, the renovated alien spaceship takes off using Earth-made rocket thrusters.

During battle with the Zentradi, the SDF-1 attempts to draw the enemy away from the island and the civilian population using its space fold capability to travel to the far side of the Moon to rendezvous with the human space fleet. However, the first space fold transports the ship, Macross island and part of the surrounding sea to the orbit of Pluto instead. After rescuing the civilians from the island, the ship undergoes a refit from February to March 2009, with a civilian and business sector built into the aft section hull and is also docked with the CVS-101 Prometheus and the SLV-111 Daedalus sea carriers. Due to the loss of the Fold system during the first space fold, the SDF-1 crew is forced to implement a modular transformation to the ship each time the main gun was used. The resulting transformation changes the external appearance of the ship to that of a giant robot, called the "Storm Attacker" mode in the original Macross series. According to series creator Shoji Kawamori, the whole process takes about 15 minutes.