Robotech

Robotech is a 1985 mecha anime, and one of the earliest big import series into the English-speaking world. In fact, it was arguably one of the first anime created for the English-speaking world, since Robotech was created by taking three completely unrelated (but visiually similar) short-run sci-fi/mecha animes - Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA - and redubbing them to present them as different sagas in a single ongoing multigenerational combat. Due to being one of the first major anime dubs to be aired on English-speaking TV channels, Robotech can be credited with exposing Western audiences to the (at the time) greater maturity and seriousness of anime compared to comics and cartoons, and thus paving the way for the [/a/|anime & manga]] boom.

Plot

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Long ago, a race of humanoid aliens (the Tirolians) landed on a planet of bug aliens (the Invid), and learned that a flower native to the Invid's homeworld could be transformed into both a superfuel and a genetic modifying agent. The Tirolians promptly ravaged the planet to claim all of this plant, which the Invid called "the Flower of Life" and the Tirolians called "Protoculture", using it to advance their own culture. Most prominently engineering a race of giant cloned warrior-slaves called the Zentraedi (or Zentradi, however you prefer) to go out and conquer worlds for them. Unfortunately for the Tirolians, the guy who found the Invid's homeworld (Zor) had his own agenda; he only gave them sterile cloned versions of the Flower of Life, and kept the real seeds for himself aboard his personal warship. Eventually, he grew sick of the other Tirolians, by this point now calling themselves "the Robotech Masters", and sent his ship off into deep space, result in both the Tirolians and their Zentraedi forces suffering a critical fuel supply shortage that would ultimately doom both races if not arrested, and resulting in the Zentraedi being sent out to find Zor's battleship... which also gave the Invid, newly transformed into a race of biomechanical killing machines, a chance to launch a devastating war against the Tirolians for the remaining supply of Protoculture.

Nice going, Zor.

Zor's battleship crashlands on a deserted island on Earth in July 1999, interrupting World War 3 and causing humanity to get its shit together to study this new technology and form a united military in case whoever created the ship comes back from it. Reverse-engineering its systems gives them "Robotechnology", which mostly means energy weapons, forcefields, and mecha - the most impressive of which, during the first saga, is the Veritech; a space-capable jet fighter that can transform partially or wholly into a giant humanoid robot. They also repair and rebuild the battleship, finally getting it ready to travel back into space again in February 2009...

Which is when a Zentraedi fleet shows up on Earth and an automated attack from the "SDF-1", as the rebuilt ship is called, blows up some scouting vessels, causing the Zentraedi to discover that it's on Earth.

Nice going, Zor.

The result is the beginning of the Robotech Wars...

The First Robotech War

The SDF-1, due to the ignorance of humanity knowing that you do not try to make a hyperspace dimensional jump in a planet's orbit, attempts to flee the attacking Zentraedi by "folding" to the Moon. Instead, they teleport the SDF-1, the entire city that had sprung up around it, and two battleships into orbit around Pluto. The first half of the war consists of the SDF-1 trying to fight its way back to Earth, followed by a devastating battle that ravages the Earth and the Zentraedi alike, resulting in a forced peace due to mutual near-annihilation.

The Second Robotech War

Learning about the existence of Protoculture (but not that the Flower of Life is hidden aboard the SDF-1, because the Zentraedi themselves don't know this), and the Robotech Masters, humanity sends an expeditionary fleet to Tirol for a preemptive strike... but ironically, once the fleet is gone, then the Robotech Masters show up at Earth. In fact, the Robotech Masters have had their collective asses kicked by the Invid, and want to seize the universe's last supply of Protoculture from humanity without alerting the Invid as to where it can be found. Instead, they cause a new war with humanity that ultimately ends with the Flower of Life being literally seeded across Earth, which alerts the Invid (currently battling the Earth expeditionary fleet and the remnants of the Tirolians left on Tirol) that they can find Protoculture on Earth.

The Third Robotech War

Invid divisions break away from the Tirolian war and invade Earth, crushing the devastated Earth military and conquering the planet. Soldiers are sent back to Earth from the expeditionary fleet to try and liberate the homeworld from the Invid.

/tg/ Relevance

One of the first big successes for Palladium was licensing the official Robotech RPG - remember, this series was fucking huge in the late 80s. Palladium then tried to create a squad-based tactical miniatures game called Robotech RPG Tactics... which was a steaming pile of crap, even by Palladium standards.