Like everyone else, I too was deeply troubled, yet I believed that for all humankind, the arrival of the SDF-1 could only be a blessing. After all, I had witnessed how it cowed those scheming politicians and shattered their carefully laid conspiracies.
— Remarks by Lieutenant Roy Fokker
Excerpt from Prelude to Doomsday: A History of the Global Civil War, by Marazzi Kane
In the year 1999, a colossal fortress from the stars fell to Earth. For many years, humanity had misused the word "miracle," but only then did they realize that true miracles had only just begun.
At the end of the twentieth century, "miracle" had been cheapened into a word used to advertise household appliances and food additives; later, when the global civil war erupted—an intricate conflict that by 1994 had escalated into worldwide carnage—the term became the favorite cliché in propaganda trumpeting each side's supposed victories.
The founding of the United Earth Alliance was once hailed as mankind's greatest hope for survival. Yet the earnest reformers within soon discovered that hundreds of opportunists had plunged the institution into turmoil: superfactional zealots, religious extremists, followers of a hundred clashing ideologies, even racists and die-hard reactionaries.
As the war sank into stalemate, fronts entangled and overlapped, and every corner of the planet burned. People had long forgotten what the word "miracle" meant. The conflict continued to escalate—everyone knew too well what such escalation implied—until they lost all faith in the future.
Yet neither side could bring the war to an end. Armed with the deadliest modern weapons, humanity marched down the wrong path toward its own destruction. Every life on Earth was immeasurably precious, yet no one could discover a way to save themselves from the inferno of nuclear fire. Only a decade into the civil war did the wiser minds of the age begin to rethink everything they believed.
The descent of the alien fortress was coincidence layered upon coincidence, and yet from the very beginning it was a cataclysm that forced humanity into profound contemplation.
Trajectory analysis revealed it to be an object driven by immense propulsion. No one knew its origin—perhaps it had slipped from some unfathomable fracture in contiguous spacetime. Its long fall scattered ruin and death: shockwaves and relentless explosions flattened countless cities; thousands were left deaf or blind; the searing rise in atmospheric temperature only magnified the devastation. Cities burned, buildings collapsed, and many perished in the disaster.
Its arrival shook humanity to the core. Mosques overflowed far beyond capacity; temples and churches, too, were packed with desperate crowds. Many chose suicide. Strangely, the three professions with the highest number of deaths were Christian clergy, certain election-seeking politicians, and the luminaries of the entertainment world. Their shared fear was simple: the arrival of an extraterrestrial craft meant that their own significance would be critically diminished. As for those who did not kill themselves—their single aim was opportunism.
At last, the vessel slowed. Though clearly damaged, it could still be steered. With astonishing efficiency it bled off speed, gliding in the final stretch—an impossible feat for something of such unimaginable mass. It came to rest upon a slanted plain on a small island once used by the French for nuclear testing—Macross.
The clearing was broad, the island's shape making it seem even wider. But for a ship of such magnitude, it was hardly an ideal berth: only a few hundred yards behind its thrusters lay a raging coastline, and at the other end a steep cliff rose near what remained of the bow.
Its outer plating, primary armor, and much of its internal structure had been torn or shattered, either during escape or in the final impact. The vessel emitted a low, mournful hum as it cooled. Waves lapped the sunlit shores of pastoral Macross Island.
Shocked though they were, humans scrambled to assess the damage—both factions in the war quickly confirmed that neither had launched the strike.
Within hours, the object was christened "the visitor from beyond the stars." Its arrival overshadowed all human concerns, and with the balance of power so suddenly altered, leaders from both sides hastily agreed to ceasefire talks. Commanders burdened with heavy armaments were compelled to act swiftly, prestige be damned. They made extraordinary concessions for the sake of a fragile truce: every eye now fixed upon the sky and the small island called Macross, where a terrifying power from the cosmos had just descended. Compared with it, the global civil war was a petty, laughable quarrel.
An expeditionary team to survey the wreck was assembled within hours. Though the Alliance had long ceased to function, its creed of caution had been etched too deeply into the minds of these explorers. Former mortal enemies now found themselves uneasily working side by side.
For the first time, foes who had fought for their own interests were forced to share a single mission.
A helicopter lifted from the deck of the Gibraltar-class carrier Knoza, retreating from the area beneath it. On the roughened landing surface, Lieutenant Roy Fokker reluctantly abandoned his duties and watched the aircraft ascend.
He glanced at the pilot—Colonel T. R. Edwards, a virtuoso of all things airborne. Once, Roy might have been more comfortable with this arrangement—they had dueled in the skies before, each trying to send the other plummeting.
By background, Roy himself could be called an internationalist. His uniform bore the emblem of his carrier's fighter squadron—a laughing skull and crossed thighbones, descended from the famed VF-84 of the old U.S. Navy aboard the legendary USS Nimitz. They had flown F-14 Tomcats before transitioning to Z-6 Executioners. In Roy's generation, he flew the newest Z-9A Falcon.
Yet now, more than anything, Roy longed to return to his own cockpit.
The mission was of immense importance. Radar arrays and instruments on the Knoza tracked the helicopter closely. Admiral Hines and other senior officials were present—only Captain Henry Gloval was missing. At that moment, Gloval sat strapped into the tail section of the helicopter with a platoon of Marines and several technicians. Their detection gear and defensive weapons outnumbered the arsenal on Roy's fighter. The aging captain was determined to see the alien visitor with his own eyes, to discover how it might reshape the world.
It was the strangest assignment Roy had ever received, and a knot of unease twisted within him—especially since their rivals had chosen Edwards as their representative.
The last time they had tried to kill each other in the sky, Edwards had been in the employ of the so-called North-East Asia Collective. Even now, no one truly knew whom he served—unless the matter had nothing to do with Edwards's personal interests.
Roy forced himself not to think about it. His own gear was heavy and uncomfortable, stuffed with weapons, ammunition, survival kits, and detection equipment.
He swept his unruly blond hair back out of his eyes. Long hair had somehow become the standard look for pilots—a tradition whose origins baffled him, though perhaps it echoed the warriors of some ancient age.
He studied Edwards. The mercenary was in his thirties, perhaps ten years Roy's senior but no taller. His skin was a healthy bronze, his sun-bleached hair long, and his smile disarmingly lethal. He was, clearly, someone who lived life well.
Though younger, Roy matched him in experience and skill. The old philosophies of Switzerland, Israel, and other nations held that the most gifted pilot—if competent—should lead, regardless of age or rank.
Former regulations requiring university degrees or years of specialized training had long been abandoned; the war's devastating casualties rendered them obsolete. Roy had even heard of children as young as fourteen being sent to juvenile flight academies.
Edwards met his gaze. "Care to take the controls, Fokker? Though honestly, you're better off staying put."
"No, thanks. I'll keep an eye out—someone has to make sure you don't botch the whole thing and get us killed."
Edwards laughed. "Fokker, do you know your problem? You're in too deep. You take this war far too seriously."
"Then tell me—would you fight for fascists?"
Edwards snorted. "This war's been raging for ten years. You still think there's a 'good side' and a 'bad side'? The Collective pays me more in a week than you make in a year."
Roy bit back a retort—he'd been ordered to avoid conflict with Edwards. A familiar smell drifted into his nostrils—pipe smoke. To Roy, it was as unpleasant as a burning soap factory.
Gloval was smoking again. But how does a junior officer remind his commanding captain that smoking aboard an aircraft is forbidden? A wise lieutenant did no such thing.
Roy turned his eyes toward Macross Island. At once, thoughts of Edwards, Gloval, and everything else evaporated. The vast black vessel lay silent, unlike anything that had ever existed on Earth.
"Good Lord…" Roy breathed. Even Edwards was rendered speechless.
It was a magnificent ship. No abnormal radiation. No weapons fire. No signs of active systems.
The helicopter touched down a few yards from the hull, amid scorch marks and crushed debris. The team disembarked and unloaded their gear.
Gloval—tall and thin, with a Stalin-style mustache dusted with pipe ash—moved briskly despite his age. His cap sat low over his brows; his energy, broad shoulders, and quick stride made him seem younger than fifty. With safety protocols in place, he prepared for external inspection.
But before they finished, Private Murphy grew restless. "Hey, look! I found a hatch!"
"You fool! Get away from there!" Gloval barked, his thick Russian accent unmistakable.
Murphy stood beside a tall, crushed circular structure, oblivious as the hatch split open and slid apart. Thin metallic tendrils extended outward. His comrades shouted warnings he never heard.
Suddenly the tendrils snapped around him, hoisting him into the air. He screamed as he was dragged inside, his rifle clattering to the ground. Terrified of harming him—or provoking something worse—no one fired. The hatch slammed shut. Gloval threw out his arm to stop Roy and the others.
"Hold positions! No one fires! Until we know more about this thing, no one takes a single step forward!"
Hours passed with little gained.
At Admiral Hines's insistence, Dr. Emil Lang arrived by helicopter to oversee the investigation. The greatest scientific mind on Earth—and foremost authority on extraterrestrial protocol—he had been sent by Hines, Senator Russell, and other Alliance leaders to direct the mission.
Dr. Lang ordered the team into radiation suits and deployed a humanoid robot equipped with sensors and remote instruments. As it approached, the hatch opened, but the robot froze and refused further commands. Lang narrowed his eyes behind the visor, deep in thought.
He was not imposing in stature, yet every enigma awakened a leonine determination within him. Ignoring protocol, he requested a small team to enter the ship. Gloval selected Roy, Edwards, eight soldiers—and himself.
"Switch on your floodlights," Lang instructed. "Weapons loaded, safeties on. If anyone fires without my permission, I'll see him court-martialed and shot."
Edwards quietly flipped his submachine gun to full-auto. No one noticed. The floodlights cut through the gloom, though even their strength could not illuminate the vast alien interior. The crew whispered, cursed, or simply stared in awe.
The inside resembled a city: translucent alloys like glass, pipes arching through the air, chambers like museum halls. Sensors indicated normal atmospheric, radiological, and biochemical conditions, so they shed their suits.
"We split into two teams," Gloval ordered. "Fokker, take four men. Dr. Lang, Edwards—you're with me." They moved in opposite directions, planning to meet at the bow.
But an hour later, they crossed paths again, apparently having looped back to the entrance.
They set out once more—none noticing that the previously inert robot had activated and followed their trail inside.
Fifteen minutes later, Roy's team reached a towering gateway, stadium-sized. He halted, sweeping his beam across the walls.
"This place is playing tricks on us. Look—are those walls moving?" he asked the machine-gunner behind him.
The gunner hesitated. "Yeah… looks like it. Something like smoke, slipping through the cracks."
Roy was about to order them forward when someone called softly, "Carruthers! Hey—where are you?"
Carruthers, the rear guard, had fallen far behind. He now strode toward them—but something was wrong. His posture was all wrong. He hung limp, head thrown back, legs moving as if along a tightrope.
They trained their lights on him—Carruthers dangled like a puppet on strings. A seventy-foot metal giant held him aloft, advancing with ponderous steps.
Frozen with horror, the squad stared. The armored behemoth raised its free claw. There was no time to request permission to fire—and even if Dr. Lang had denied it, the men would have ignored him.
Roy, the gunner, and the others opened fire, rounds blazing in the dark. Bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the giant's armor—mere toys against such a creature.
Its right hand erupted with a beam of searing orange light, and in an instant one Marine was incinerated like an insect.