Dana getting her hair dyed blonde would ironically mirrors how Japanese youth would make their hair yellow to rebel. At the start of the Second Robotech War, she's practically running the 15th Squadron like a biker gang of misfits.
"Look Up! The Sky Is Falling" being called an old Minmei song wouldn't be out of character for someone who had seen the Zentraedi raze the Earth, destroying a world she had once known. The lyrics describe how easily war can upend one's life not just for soldiers but the civilians.
One would wonder how it is that the likes of Anatole Leonard and T.R. Edwards were entrusted with command of the Army of the Southern Cross and a squadron of Veritechs in the Pioneer Expedition respectively. Then the (still canon) miniseries From the Stars revealed they had respectively headed the development of the Destroids and the Veritech themselves, and Edwards has actual combat experience: as bad their personalities were, they knew their job (and that's discounting that, before the reboot, Leonard had created the Army of the Southern Cross from scratch).
Also, the same miniseries revealed that they are both former members of the Anti-Unification League, and both know of each other's membership and the involvement in the hijacking of Armor-1, the destruction of Antarctic Base with the Southern Grand Cannon and the attempted destruction of Macross Island and Alaska Base. Edwards has quite the influence over Leonard, who by the time of the launch is already the supreme commander of the Southern Cross...
The SDF-1 contained sectors to house a city for the civilians similar to the Robotech Masters who have ships that carry cities on board as well. Considering they're from separate series in Japan, the coincidence of it all is just astounding to say the least.
Macross and Southern Cross are both part of the Super Dimension series in Japan. While the stories are unrelated, they are from the same production company and share creative staff. It's no coincidence at all that the series share certain themes and design aspects.
All three sagas adapted from three separate original Anime series feature a green haired alien falling in love with one of the human characters. Two of three share the same the VA and two of three have talents in music.
Every time the Invid invasion of Earth (start of the "New Generation" saga, a brief flashback in "Love, Live, Alive", and the canon comic "Love & War") we don't see any Southern Cross hardware, only REF gear (a Garfish, a squadron of VF-6 Alpha, the MAC III and Tiger destroids, and the CVR-3 armour) or some more conventional weapons (light tanks in the original series). That's how badly the Southern Cross had been mauled by the Masters and then by the Invid: most of their advanced weapons and all the factories to make more had been destroyed, and they had to use older equipment or borrow REF supplies to make it do, to the point that even a high-ranking officer like Dana (who had been promoted) is wearing a CVR-3.
In her brief appearance in "Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" Dana is shown having a bad relationship with her family and a reputation for not speaking much, a rather big change from the pride for being Max and Miriya's daughter she had in "Love and War" and her talkative personality in the Masters Saga. Between the earlier events (Masters Saga and "Love and War") and the latter ("Prelude" right before the final counterattack on Earth), Dana had reunited with her family-and discovered that while she grew up without parents and with a (never seen) younger brother on a planet infested by rebellious Zentraedi (something that likely had an impact on the life of a half-Zentraedi) and then fought a desperate battle to defend Earth and ultimately failed, her parents had apparently replaced her and didn't even see fit telling her she had a little sister.
The best part? This actually mirrors, to some degree, how things progressed in the Macross continuity - wherein Max & Milia/Miriya had a number of children but eventually developed a more rocky relationship due to their fame and increasing personal responsibilities (Max made it all the way to command of an SDF, while Miriya retired from the military and got elected mayor of the colony ship Max's SDF defends... but it's clear she has regrets about that path) and their separation made their relationship with all their children a bit complicated. While Komilia, Dana's Macross counterpart, hasn't really appeared on camera in a main Macross work since the original, side materials do indicate she has a similarly difficult relationship with both her parents due to the sheer weight of the legacy she has to fulfill, and two other shows, Macross 7 and Macross Delta, both depict another Jenius/Sterling daughter and granddaughter, respectively, grappling with the legacy.
Dana's passing mention of having a younger brother explains why she's such a good Team Mom for her team: she's been a Parental Substitute for years, she's simply doing with her troopers what she has been doing with her brother for years. That, and she likely really misses him, what with him living somewhere else and her being unable to get a leave long enough to visit due the war...
People have commented on how (in materials following Macross) New York City is still standing, even after the Zentradi Rain of Death (as the Grand Fleet's attack is known in the novelizations). The answer is that the Grand Fleet used bioscanners to target the population of Earth and not exactly the cities... and trying to escape the impending attacks, the vast majority of New Yorkers fled the city, thus sparing it from destruction. Being an iconic landmark, it would also be considered for Earth's reconstruction.
Additionally, the Invid would consider it as a good place to keep their human cattle for whatever slave labor or experiments they need on hand.
A bit of fridge heartwarming: It's doubtful Rook could make that dress in a day, or they just happened to find the peppermints in the abandoned town, it's likely they were preparing for Anne's birthday for a while.
During the Battle of Reflex Point the Invid show themselves prepared for the REF attack, even if their new Shadow devices should have made their fleet impossible to detect until too late, and were surprisingly quick at throwing everything they had in the frame. The Shadow Chronicles indirectly explains why: the Regess was alive when the Children of Shadows first appeared and remembered both their tactics and their technology, so when Jupiter Division raided Earth with vehicles invisible to their Protoculture detectors she immediately realized what was going on and prepared for the coming attack.
Much is made of the Shadow devices making the REF's Protoculture-using vehicles and weapons invisible to Invid sensors, but in the final battle, after initial problems, they can target the Veritechs and ships just fine. The Invid have more sensors... Including optical cameras: even if Shadow devices hid the REF vehicles from all Invid sensors and not just their preferred Protoculture detectors, the Invid could still see where their fire came from and throw all their vehicles in the general direction until one came into visual range and told everyone else where exactly the REF was.
This is also likely how the Invid were able to destroy Jupiter Division: once the REF started firing they rushed in the general direction until someone saw where they were, and then they attacked.
About the reveal that Bioroid pilots are genetically humans and not micronized Zentraedi and why it's made so much a deal out of it:
The Army of the Southern Cross had assumed that the Masters were using Zentraedi as cannon fodder as they usually do or at most their own people, thus Tirolians, but finding a human causes all too many questions. Are the Masters kidnapping humans to brainwash and use as cannon fodder (as the Zor did in the source material)? If yes, how are they doing it without being noticed? Or have they destroyed the REF and using the survivors as cannon fodder? Or are the Tirolians humans? And if the Tirolians are humans how is it even possible? Is Earth a Lost Colony of Tirol? Are the Tirolians transplanted humans who somehow developed advanced technology before Earth? And if they're transplanted humans, who or what brought them to Tirol? The ASC has no answer for any of these questions, and some of the answers could be terrifying.
In the novels, Colonel Wolfe says that there's no way to defeat the Invid. In the anime, Scott begins thinking the same thing when he sees the ruins of Point K... Wolfe had been on Earth a lot longer...
"Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" shows a brief encounter between Dana and her younger sister Maia... And Dana looks straight up murderous while Maia is scared before they both turn sad at how poor their relationship is and the former walks away, with a witness hinting it wasn't the first time things went that way. What exactly happened between them to leave Maia Sterling scared of her sister?
Where did Rook got her custom cyclone from? Why did she come to Scott and co's aid and then just run off when they first met? The expanded universe gives a possibility that she might be a half-Zentradi.
