Robotech
(Obra de ¨Jack McKinney¨, seudónimo de los escritores Brian Daley y James Luceno)
Qué es Robotech?
Robotech fue una serie muy conocida en la década de los ‘80. Es sorprendente encontrar en una serie animada una historia tan apasionante y bien pensada. Robotech partió de un intento de una compañía de EE.UU. de traducir y transmitir la serie Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, muy exitosa en Japón. Pero algunas regulaciones de la TV norteamericana de entonces requerían que las series a transmitir fueran al menos de 65 capítulos (13 semanas de lunes a viernes), y Macross constaba sólo con 36. Entonces un hombre, llamado Carl Macek, dedicó tiempo y esfuerzo a juntar la serie Macross con otras dos series de la misma compañía (Super Dimensional Cavalry Southern Cross y Génesis Climber Mospeada) y darles una historia para que tuvieran una continuidad. Al resultado se lo llamo ROBOTECH.
Robotech es mucho más que gloriosas animaciones de aviones transformándose en robots gigantes, tiene una historia compleja y atrapante, que trataba sobre la guerra, el amor y la esperanza de toda la raza humana por un fin común.

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La serie de TV
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Es el punto de partida, aunque mucha gente cree -por falta de información- que es lo único. Es cierto, sin la serie no podríamos maravillarnos de las cualidades más resaltantes de Robotech: las luchas, los mechas, los personajes y las relaciones entre éstos y la música. Pero después de verla -o mejor dicho, de disfrutarla- nos quedan varias preguntas: ¿Qué pasó antes de que cayera el SDF-1? ¿Qué pasa con Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes y los demás después de la 1ª generación? ¿Por qué Dana y el escuadrón 15 no están en la tercera generación? ¿Por qué Rick Hunter no aparece en la batalla de Punto Réflex? ¿Adónde va Scott después del capítulo final?
Ante el éxito de la serie, se vendió y se creó mucho merchandising: juguetes, maquetas, libros de rol, innumerables comics, los 3 Art Books y las novelas McKinney.
¿Cómo sigue la historia?
El problema de la inconsistencia en la historia de Robotech es el siguiente: hay muchas fuentes y más de una versión. ¿Por qué? Porque Harmony Gold autorizó cualquier proyecto sin fijarse si tenía alguna continuidad con Robotech, sólo se fijó en el dinero por el uso de la licencia de Robotech. Por eso surgieron comics como Aftermath, con poco y nada que ver con lo que es Robotech. Investigando en la animación que se hizo de Robotech encontramos Robotech The Movie: The Untold Story y Robotech II: The Sentinels.
Robotech The Movie: The Untold Story
Esta fue una producción no muy exitosa de Carl Macek. Le fue pedida en tiempo récord, de manera que se basó en un conocido anime de los ochenta llamado Megazone 23 (el primer OVA de la historia) y partes de Southern Cross para crear esta historia que sucede justo antes del arribo de los Maestros a la Tierra. Los Maestros han llegado después de su largo viaje al Sistema Solar con un solo fin: recuperar a toda costa la Matriz de la Protocultura oculta dentro del SDF-1 (ahora enterrado). Después de evaluar su bajo nivel de Protocultura y al poderío de las fuerzas terrestres, entienden que es poco probable que ganen en un enfrentamiento directo con los terrícolas. Por eso idean un plan para adquirir la Matriz en complicidad con algunos terrícolas y utilizando a un coronel secuestrado (B.D. Andrews) como su agente.
Con este plan los Maestros hubieran logrado obtener la Matriz sin confrontación directa con el Gobierno de la Tierra Unida y conseguido el poder supremo que les posibilitaría la reconquista de su antiguo Imperio Robotech, el cual quizás incluiría a la Tierra. Pero un joven soldado nota el extraño comportamiento de B.D. Andrews y hace una reunión con su amigo Mark Landry, donde le entrega el MODAT 5, una poderosa motocicleta que a la vez es la terminal de una supercomputadora. B.D. Andrews interrumpe la reunión, pero Mark Landry logra escapar con el MODAT 5; Todd no tiene tanta suerte.
La película gira después sobre los intentos de Mark Landry por terminar con la conspiración de Andrews y los Maestros.
Robotech II: The Sentinels
Esta historia iba a responder la segunda de las preguntas hechas más arriba. Contaría la historia de los sobrevivientes de la Primera Guerra Robotech y la salida de la Fuerza Expedicionaria a Tirol, el planeta de los Maestros de la Robotecnia, tal como se lo explicó Gloval a Lisa en los últimos capítulos de la serie. Carl Macek, el creador de Robotech, se iba a encargar de la creación de esta nueva serie que iba a ser animada de cero por la Tatsunoko, la productora japonesa donde se compraron los animes que combinados y retocados pasarían a formar Robotech. Por culpa de problemas financieros (la devaluación del dólar y el aumento del yen), surgieron problemas financieros y Matchbox, la empresa que vendería los juguetes de Sentinels, retiró su apoyo económico. Se habían producido 4 capítulos de los 65 que compondrían a la serie, por lo que se compilaron y compaginaron para sacar una película.
En esta película vemos a nuestros personajes con unos años más preparándose para la partida en el SDF-3 al planeta Tirol. Incluso vemos a personajes de la segunda generación como Leonard, Emerson, y a Dana Sterling y Bowie Grant que en este tiempo son niños. También observamos a un personaje que aparecería en la mitad de la tercera generación, el Coronel Jonathan Wolff.
Los sucesos más importantes de la película son la invasión de Tirol por los Invid (Invids vs Bioroids!!) y el casamiento de Rick con Lisa, en cuya boda canta Lynn Minmei.
Las novelas McKinney
Ya pasamos por las dos otras producciones animadas de Robotech aparte de la serie que se vio en TV. Ahora hablaremos de la única fuente que existe para la historia completa de Robotech: las 21 novelas escritas por Jack McKinney. Estas 21 novelas incluyen a la serie que vimos en televisión, a la historia completa de Robotech II: The Sentinels, a los espacios intermedios entre las generaciones y un final para la saga. Esa es, por lo que respecta a nuestro club, la historia completa de Robotech. En estos momentos, la página oficial hecha por Harmony Gold presenta una línea de tiempo contraria a estas novelas, que ni siquiera incluye a Robotech II: The Sentinels o un final para la serie, además Carl Macek, el creador de Robotech, no figura en los créditos.
Por eso mientras no exista otra alternativa nuestro club considera a las 21 novelas McKinney como la versión oficial de la historia de Robotech. En éstas se resaltan las características épicas que hacen a Robotech, aunque un libro jamás podrá reproducir con exactitud la transformación de un varitech o las luchas entre los Ciclones y los Invids, sí puede darnos otros aspectos y perspectivas en las que una serie o película no podría profundizar.
Le reiteramos a los usuarios de nuestra Biblioteca Digital que el orden en que ofrecemos los libros es el orden en que deben ser leídos, para una mejor comprensión.
Especialmente para el Club Internacional de Literatura "Calíope", les dejamos además estos dos artículos que ofrecen aún más claridad sobre esta adictiva serie:
Introducción a Robotech
Cronología Robotech
INFORMACIÓN SOBRE LA SAGA
(Nos falta la información en español, si usted la tiene y desea compartirla, le rogamos nos la envíe.)

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1- Génesis
The Global Civil War was about to make Humankind extinct, when the stupendous Super Dimensional Fortress dispatched to Earth by a dying alien genius changed all that forever. Humanity's only hope lay in a corps of untried young men and women gifted with powers they didn't fully understand. Then the most feared conquerors in the universe attacked, determined to destroy them for no reason they could comprehend.
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2- Battle Cry
Henry Gloval is in command of the Super Dimensional Fortress. But a massive enemy force led by Khyron the Backstabber is hot on his trail . . .
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3- Homecoming
For over a year, the humans aboard the Super Dimensional Fortress fought and eluded a millions-strong armada of alien warships. Now the SDF-1 would have to slug her way through the massed enemy fleet to return to blue-white Terra. But villains come in human form as well as alien -- and the evil of power-hungry men may be the most lethal threat of all . . .
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4- Battlehymn
For two years, Captain Gloval and his crew had been chased through the solar system, only to be made to feel like unwanted relatives when they returned to Earth. Now, in direct violation of Council orders, Gloval commands the Super Dimensional Fortress to rise from its landing site in the Pacific . . . |
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5- Force of Arms
Supreme Commander Dolza had amassed the largest fleet of Zentraedi warships the Universe had ever seen . . . and all their weapons were aimed at Earth! |
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6- Doomsday
The Robotech Defenders Thought The War Was Behind Them! A war without victors, that had brought two races to the brink of extinction. A war without spoils, save for the devastated Earth itself... A new-age ark, the Super Dimensional Fortress had returned to its ravaged homeworld, and those who had lived through Armageddon began the painstaking process of reconstruction. But they had the Zentraedi to help them, former enemies who shared a common goal -- survival! But all was not well in this bravest of worlds....Unaccustomed to a life without warfare, many of the alien giants were reverting to their old ways. Now one had appeared who vowed to lead them back to their former glory -- Khyron! -- an alien culture's hero reborn to pick up where Dolza had left off! |
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7- Southern Cross
It is twenty years after the invasion of the Zentraedi was beaten off. Now the Robotech Masters of the Zentraedi have returned to Earth to finish the job. And only young Dana Sterling -- half-human, half-Zentraedi -- can save the Earth . . . or destroy it. |
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8- Metal Fire
An alien fortress had crashlanded on Earth. But the most recent arrival from the galaxy's more sinister side had been brought down deliberately. Now it sat silently overlooking Monument City, as though daring someone to penetrate its dark mysteries. And who better to test the mettle of that ship than Dana Sterlings 15th Squadron ATACs -- after all, they had brought the thing down to begin with! The mission read like a one-way ticket to doom; but for Dana it was a chance to get a glimpse of the glories of her ancestor race. And perhaps a chance to glimpse at the pilot of the red Bioroid who haunted her dreams -- an alien called Zor........ |
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9- The Final Nightmare
The Robotech Masters' war against Earth has become even more desperate: the Protoculture Matrix is now degenerating, transforming into the Flower of Life, which is sure to draw the savage, merciless Invid across the galaxy. Meanwhile, Dana Sterling, half-alien commander of an elite Hovertank unit, is waging a desperate personal war to uncover the meaning of her strange Visions, and the secrets of her alien heritage. Humans lock in mortal combat with the Masters' clone hordes in a clash of tremendous war machines. Zor Prime, reincarnation of the discoverer of Protoculture, struggles to regain his lost memories and unlock his tormented past. As the apocalyptic war comes to the final, decisive battle, Dana Sterling realizes to her horror that . . . EVEN VICTORY SPELLS UTTER DISASTER!! |
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10- Invid Invasion
The Invid Regis had succeeded where the Zentraedi and their Robotech Masters had failed. She had driven her warrior horde across the far reaches of space to lay claim to the galaxy's last supply of the Flower of Life and its all-precious offspring, Protoculture. Earth was conquered, occupied; and it was up to the space-weary veterans of the Expeditionary Force to retake the planet-a world most of them had never seen. Only no one had foreseen the disastrous defeat that would greet the first wave, or the miserable welcome in store for its few and sorry heroes. But Lieutenant Scott Bernard had survived both, and it was now his mission, as well as his personal pledge, to reach and destroy the Invid hive dubbed Reflex Point. He would soon have a ragtag bond of freedom fighters at his side, but before them were thousands of miles of travel through hostile territory on...The Long Road Ahead! |
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11- Metamorphosis
A small renegade group of misfits is Earth's last hope against the Invid's plan to obliterate the Human race. But don't count them out just yet . . . |
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12- Symphony of Light
It had been a long hard road for Scott Bernard and his ragtag band of Robotech irregulars; but the Invid stronghold known as Reflex Point was finally close at hand, and preparations were under way for a full-scale assault. But the Invid Regis was not about to surrender so easily the world she had come halfway across the galaxy to claim - especially now that her experiments in racial transmutation were nearing their conclusion. And no one, Human or lnvid, thought to ask whether Protoculture might have something to say in these matters. But indeed it did; and the final encounter of the Robotech Wars would be more mystifying than anyone had imagined. And Earth Was The Prize! |
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13- Sentinels The Devil's Hand
It was 2020. Six years had passed since the destruction of the Super Dimensional Fortresses 1 and 2, that final tragedy of the First Robotech War. But Earth was on the mend now, and from the wreckage of those ships the Robotech Defense Force had succeeded in fashioning a new battle fortress -- the SDF-3. Its mission: to cross the galaxy and make peace with Tirol's Robotech Masters. It sounded straightforward enough; but unknown to Admirals Rick and Lisa Hunter and their crew of thousands, the Robotech Masters were already on their way to Earth! Nevertheless Tirol would have a greeting in store for the Expeditionary Mission: an incendiary salute from the warlord whose hordes had conquered half the galactic Quadrant -- the Invid Regent! Threatened with a swift and violent end, and suddenly torn by internal struggles for power, the RDF would find itself thrust into a savage war for survival! |
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14- Sentinels Dark Powers
The Robotech Expeditionary Force had been stranded on the far side of the galaxy as the result of damage to their Super Dimensional Fortress during the battle with the Invid hordes. Their chances for survival were slim. Suddenly, a starship unlike anything that had ever flown before appeared -- manned by an incredible assortment of beings who meant to challenge the might of the Invid Regent himself! REF volunteers signed aboard, with their might war mecha in tow, for a campaign that would either mean the total destruction of the freedom fighters or liberty for the planets of -- The Sentinels. |
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15- Sentinels Death Dance
Marooned On A Doomed World! Four months passed without a word from the Sentinels, and the members of the Expeditionary Mission to Tirol were beginning to fear the worst. This, even as they entered into truce negotiations with the being who might have been responsible for the destruction of the Sentinels' starship -- the Invid Regent himself. Meanwhile, the survivors of the Farrago remained hopelessly stranded on Praxis, a planet in cataclysm, hastened to endtime by the dark designs of the Invid Regis. But deep within that world's transformed core were answers to the Sentinels' prayers; if they could only reach them before Praxis tore itself apart. For Rick and Lisa Hunter, Cabell, and the others, the moment had arrived for desperate actions... And Time Was Running Out! |
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16- Sentinels World Killers
The bearlike Karbarrans and the swashbuckling amazons from Praxis, the feral natives of Garuda and the Human Robotech heroes -- these oddly -- met champions banded together with other races, from other planets, to form the Sentinels. Yet what fighting force could hope to dislodge the Invid hordes from Haydon IV, ethereal world of superscience and hidden emotional conflict; or Spheris, crystalline globe of living minerals and murderous resonances? The Sentinels launch their attack nevertheless; they've come too far to surrender to tyranny. But the treachery of a megalomanic Human general and a mutating Invid P.O.W. make the war seem hopeless. The Sentinels battle on, though, because for them it's... Victory or Death! |
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17- Sentinels Rubicon
Optera! Birthplace of the Flowers of Life and their agents of retribution, the Invid . . . nexus for an unfolding of events that had left the galaxy reshaped and redefined . . . and now the focal point of the Sentinels' long campaign to liberate the Quadrant from the Regent's tyranny. Edwards is on his way to Optera, in flight from Tirol with his prisoner Lynn-Minmei and a handful of Invid Inorganics under his control. So too are Breetai's Zentraedi -- closing on the very world the Imperative bade them defoliate generations ago -- and the renegade forces of Tesla, mutated beyond recognition by the fruits of the Flower. The Sentinels themselves are not far behind. However, they have Peryton to deal with first -- a godforsaken planet cursed by fate and time itself. But what awaits Rick, Lisa, and the Human Sentinels there is a mere primer for what is to come: the realization that they have journeyed across the galaxy . . . to wage war against each other! |
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18- The End of the Circle
A Warp In The Space-Time Continuum... The SDF-3 has remanifested from spacefold, but no one aboard has the faintest idea where they are. The ship appears to be grounded in some glowing fog, ensnared by light itself. Lang and Rem dub the phenomenon "newspace" -- but are at a loss to explain what it really is and who, or what, is keeping them there. For Lang, it seems like old times: The ship's Protoculture drives have disappeared. But other events are transpiring, unbeknownst to the stranded crew of the SDF-3. In Earthspace, the Ark Angel has been spared the fate suffered by the REF main fleet after the Invid transubstantiation. Vince and Jean Grant decide that the only logical course of action is to try and locate the SDF-3... On Haydon IV, something has awakened the Awareness -- and a mysterious change comes over the Haydonites. Exedore and the four Sterlings suddenly find themselves imprisoned beneath the surface -- as the planet leaves orbit, destination unknown... All of the pieces of this strange cosmic puzzle are about to come together...and the ultimate conflict is imminent. The question is: Will The Universe Survive? |
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19- The Zentraedi Rebellion
Not everyone was eager to share the planet Earth with the Zentraedi survivors of the First Robotech War. There was little prospect of a lasting peace, as the tensions in the Southlands gave rise to two opposing forces, and each vowed to fight until the other was eradicated. Caught beween the two rivals was the Robotech Defense Force. Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes, Max and Miriya Sterling, Breetai, and others who would all have their parts to play in the period that came to be called the Malcontent Uprisings.... |
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20- The Masters Gambit
The Robotech Masters had come to Earth to reclaim the precious Protoculture Matrix -- the enigmatic substance that powered an entire civilization. But poised on the edge of Earthspace, the Masters discovered their mission would not be easy. For Earth's Robotech defenders had vanquished the Masters' clone army, and the Super Dimensional Fortress that concealed the Matrix lay inaccessible beneath the ruins of Macross City. And though the SDF-1's mother computer had survived the holocaust, it was now housed at the Humans' Protoculture research lab in Tokyo -- where it had embarked on a second career as EVE, the telegenic guiding voice of the postwar generation. EVE was the Masters' only possible access to the buried Matrix. But two things stood in their way: an ally of the Humans who seemed to be the renegade Robotech scientist Zor, and a group of young, cynical hackers out to subvert Tokyo's most powerful computers -- especially EVE the most tempting target of them all... |
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21- Before the Invid Storm
SHIP OF DREAMS! The second Robotech War ended without victors. The Masters had been defeated, but the Army of the Southern Cross had suffered devastating losses, with Earth's cities reduced to rubble. Then a heavily armed warship arrived from Tirol and instantly became the object of intense rivalries. To the survivors of the United Earth Government, it was a spear they could hurl into the Invid Sensor Nebula. To the decimated Southern Cross forces, it was the weapon they needed to use against the impending Invid invasion. For the Starchildren it represented escape from their planetary prison, and the Shimada Family wanted it neutralized before it sabotaged their hopes for a peaceful solution. But no one knew just how dangerous the ship could be. No one, that is, except for its commander, Colonel Jonathan Wolf of the rag tag freedom fighters known as the Sentinels, and Dana Sterling, heroine of the war with the Masters. And Dana had her own agenda... Set between The Final Nightmare (Robotech #9) and Invid Invasion (#10), BEFORE THE INVID STORM reveals the struggle for control of the dreadnought from Tirol. |
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