SDF-1 Macross

The SDF-1 Macross  is a fictional interstellar transforming spacecraft from The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, an anime science fiction series that aired in Japan in 1982–1983, and its American adaptation Robotech (1985). Mechanical designer Kazutaka Miyatake of Studio Nue created the original SDF-1 design for the first Macross anime series.

Fictional ship background
SDF (Super Dimension Fortress) is a reference to the ship being a maneuverable space fortress capable of space folds, or travelling in subspace for faster-than-light movement. The fictional ship has also appeared on many videogames set in the Macross universe.

In February 2009, the special event Macross: The Super Dimension Space Launching Ceremony was held in Akihabara to celebrate the fictional launch date of the SDF-1. During the event, the toy manufacturer Yamato displayed the prototype for a 1/2000 scale replica toy of the SDF-1.

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.

In Macross
In the original Macross series, the SDF-1 Macross is the flagship of the United Nations Spacy. Gunsight One is the tactical call-sign for the bridge of the SDF-1. The bridge crew includes Captain Bruno J. Global (Henry Gloval in Robotech), Chief Tactical Officer Misa Hayase (Lisa Hayes, who is promoted to executive officer in Robotech) and Chief Weaponry Officer Claudia LaSalle (Claudia Grant in Robotech). The final three members of the bridge crew are Kim Kabirov, Shammy Milliome, and Vanessa Laird (Kim Young, Sammy Porter, and Vanessa Leeds in Robotech, also referred to as the "Bridge Bunnies").

The ship was originally a gun destroyer that belonged to a group of aliens called The Supervision Army. After being damaged in a battle against their longtime enemies, The Zentradi, the Supervision Army abandoned the gun destroyer. It wandered through space for some time before crashing on Earth. The alien ship was codenamed Alien Star Ship 1 (ASS-1) upon discovery. The arrival of the ASS-1 provokes the "U.N. Wars", since it motivates a movement to unite Earth under a U.N. controlled military government. This war is bloody and lasts throughout most of the first decade of the new millennium. In the course of that decade, the ASS-1 is rebuilt on the island where it crashed and renamed SDF-1 Macross

In the final episode of the series, the Macross is the target of a kamikaze run by rogue Zentradi Captain Quamzin Kravshera (Khyron in Robotech). His assault does not completely destroy the Macross, but results in severe damage to the ship - including the loss of its main cannon and the Daedalus landing craft. The ship is repaired and refitted. returning to service as UN Spacy's headquarters. The missing Daedalus and remaining Prometheus carrier are replaced by a pair of ARMD-class carriers. The bridge crew also survive almost unscathed (in the Robotech storyline, the crew perish at the end of Khyron's attack, with Lisa Hayes being the sole survivor) and Macross City is evacuated, due to radiation contamination from the attack.

In The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (the 1984 animated film adaptation of the original series), the SDF-1 was a female Zentradi (Meltlandi) gun destroyer that crashes on Earth after being chased by the male Zentradi. 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. 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. 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. 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.

In 2040 (Macross Plus), 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, 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, UN 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.

In 2059 (Macross Frontier), 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-04 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"). In the final episode of Macross Frontier, 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.

In Macross II (a parallel-universe sequel that takes place in 2092), the Macross is a relic that released a powerful energy discharge upon the arrival of an alien race known as the "Marduk". Upon being exposed to Earth culture, an "Emulator" (female Marduk singer used to motivate their enslaved Zentran and Meltran warriors) named Ishtar believes the Macross to be the Ship of the Alus, an entity prophesied to bring peace to the Marduk. With the help of news reporter Hibiki Kanzaki and ace pilot Silvie Gena, Ishtar has the Macross launched in an attempt to stop the Marduk supreme leader Ingues from exterminating all life on Earth. In response, Ingues destroys the Macross, but its main bridge ejects in time. Performing a new song of peace, Ishtar motivates all Marduk ships to turn around and destroy Ingues' ship, ending the war between Earth and the Marduk.

Origin Of Name 'Macross'
Macross was a term coined for the series from 'Macro' to imply its massive size, and 'Cross' to imply the long journey home it was to embark on in the series. The original working title was "Megarodo" which in Japanese is a pun on megaload / megaroad, implying size and distance, in a similar sense to Macross and macro / cross, and Megaroad-class colony fleets were the successors to the Macross-class ships (see Macross Flashback 2012). English-speaking fans have extrapolated that the "-ss" suffix stands for space ship, but this is not an official explanation from the Japanese creators. The "-ss" actually originated from "-su" in the Japanese pronunciation ("makurosu"), which in turn was derived from the Japanese pronunciation of Macbeth ("makubesu"), a pre-production name that one of the show's producers, an admirer of Shakespeare, initially suggested. The name "Macross" was settled upon as a compromise.

In Robotech
In the American Robotech adaptation, the fictional spacecraft was originally the flagship of an alien scientist named Zor, who was killed as he sent the spacecraft to Earth. A race of aliens called the "Robotech Masters" wants Zor's battle fortress because it holds the Protoculture generator (a fuel source Zor cultivated from the Invid flower that led to further development of the Robotech Masters and Zentraedi technologies that were fundamental to interstellar domination which, in order to maintain them, all depended on the Protoculture fuel source). The Robotech Masters sends the Zentraedi, their army of cloned warriors, to find Zor's ship.

On Earth, there has already been a massive and bloody "global civil war" going on throughout the 1990s when "the visitor" first arrives in 1999. "The Visitor" motivates several of the warring factions to put their differences aside to create the "United Earth Defense Council", which serves as the head of a global military government. After the creation of the UEDC, there are a few minor skirmishes with dissenting nations, but it is not on the scale of the "global civil war" that came before it, nor is it on the scale of the U.N. Wars in the Macross version. After dealing with those minor skirmishes, work proceeds to rebuild "the visitor" which is eventually renamed SDF-1. In Robotech, Macross is the name of the island in the South Pacific that the spaceship crashes on. Hence, in Robotech, Macross City is named after the island it is originally founded on.

The ensuing war between the Earth forces and the Zentradi is retrospectively labeled the First Robotech War (Space War I in Macross).

In February 2014, Khyron (Quamzin Kravshera in Macross) the leader of the Zentraedi rebellions, attacks Macross City with the intent of destroying the SDF-1. However, the SDF-1 manages to fire a single shot from its main cannon using all of its remaining power and severely damaging Khyron's battle cruiser. Khyron - determined to have his revenge even at the cost of his own life, pilots his ship into a collision course with the SDF-1. The SDF-1, drained of power and unable to move, is damaged beyond repair in the subsequent collision and explosion. The SDF-2, the SDF-1's sister ship which is to be under Commander Lisa Hayes's (Misa Hayase in Macross) command, is also destroyed. (The SDF-2 did not exist in the original Macross storyline of this episode.) Admiral Henry J. Gloval (Bruno J. Global in Macross), Commander Claudia Grant (Claudia LaSalle in Macross), bridge operators Vanessa Leeds, Kim Young, and Sammy Porter (Vanessa Laird, Kim Kabirov Shammy Milliome in Macross) and the rest of the SDF-1's crew are killed in the attack - the only survivor being Commander Hayes, who is ejected by the Admiral himself in the only operational escape pod at the last possible moment. New Macross City became too radioactive to be habitable, and is abandoned. The SDF-1's radioactive hulk along with the wreckage of the SDF-2 and Khyron's battlecruiser are buried under three gigantic mounds and the city surrounding it is completely leveled, although not before everything that can be salvaged from the wreckage of the three ships is recovered for further use in the rebuilding of Earth and the construction of the SDF-3 Pioneer.

Unknown at the time, a Protoculture matrix is buried within the wreckage of the SDF-1. When the Robotech Masters realize that the Zentraedi have failed to retrieve it, they begin a 15-year journey in their motherships to find it themselves. When they arrive in Earth orbit in 2029, it marks the beginning of the Second Robotech War.

Toys
The first toy replica of the SDF-1 Macross was made by Takatoku Toys during the original series' run. It completely resembled its anime counterpart, but with the addition of landing gear on the underside of its ship mode. This toy was imported into the U.S. by Matchbox in 1985 as part of the Robotech line. A smaller version of the SDF-1 Macross toy was imported to the Convertors toy line in the 1980s as a Maladroid character.

In 2007, Wave released a new Macross toy replica under the W.H.A.M.! (Wave High Advanced Model) banner. The 1/5000 scale SDF-1 Macross stood at 9 inches tall in Storm Attacker mode and was designed after its appearance in Macross: Do You Remember Love?. In late-2010, Yamato Toys released a 1/3000 scale replica. Originally, they previewed a larger 1/2000 scale prototype, but due to production costs, the company opted for the smaller size. The 1/3000 toy is the first to feature a miniature replica of Macross City, which is located in the Storm Attacker mode's left leg.

Model kits
Model kits of the SDF-1 Macross were first manufactured by Arii and Imai between 1982 and 1983. When Imai went bankrupt, the molds of their Macross kits were acquired by Bandai and subsequently re-released throughout the 1990s. These kits required paint and glue (except for the Special Coating versions, which were painted in chrome silver) and were non-transformable; they were available in ship or Storm Attacker modes.

Yamato made a 1/3000 scale PVC model Kit around 2010 to conmemorate the fictional departure of the spaceship.