Tear Jerker / Robotech

• The novelization of Zor's final day is this. Zor wanted to just make clean energy to stop an energy crisis... and his invention, Protoculture, led to the rise of a totalitarian triumvirate, a bloodthirsty empire that spanned countless star systems, the creation of an entire race of warrior clones, and the unending hatred of the Invid. He tried to send the SDF-1 away to Earth as a way to save the galaxy from continuing the horrific wars... and in the end, he made it worse. He just wanted to do good, and in the end, his legacy would be that of a thousand worlds, drenched in the blood of those who took his creations for their own ends... and their victims.
• The start of the "New Generation" part: it comes after the Army of the Southern Cross fought hard against the Robotech Masters, won at the price of horrible losses... And the Invid, far weaker than the Masters had been, swooped in and overpowered the remains of the Southern Cross, winning so fast and decisively that until "Love, Live, Alive" all we saw was a couple images of them being routed and their escape.
  • Worse still, this is a direct consequence of Zor Prime's last act: knowing what would happen if the Invid found out of the Flower of Life he crashed the Masters' flagship on it to try and destroy it, but instead diffused the seeds and got the Regess' attention, throwing his life away for nothing.
• In hindsight, Dana's story. As a child, as seen in the "Sentinels" video, she was a cheerful prankster... Just before her parents leave for parts unknown, leaving her behind with family friends and a (never seen) little brother. As a young adult she's a troublemaker with quite some issues, and she has to fight a desperate war in which she sees friends and even the man she possibly loved dying, all for nothing due the Invid coming in right after the Army of the Southern Cross and the Robotech Masters had depleted each others' strength. She has to escape the planet she fought so hard to defend, then finally reunites with her parents... Who in the meantime had apparently replaced her and her brother, who isn't even mentioned anymore. By the time we see her again in "Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles" she refuses to talk with her sister... And has to meet Rem, who, being a clone of Zor, is identical to Zor Prime, the other clone of Zor and the man who she may have fallen for.
  • Dana's on-page encounter with her sister: right after seeing Rem she sees Maia... And the look in her eyes spells hatred while Maia seems scared, before Dana walks away in sadness and with her head bowed and Maia follows her with her eyes. And by the comments, it wasn't the first time their encounters went like that.
• It's easy to miss, but just before her birthday party its revealed, and Anne thinks she's all alone again, she asks:
  "Why does everyone always abandon me?"
  • She also reveals she's been dying for a real birthday with other people all her life.
• Rick Hunter, while doing his duty as wing leader, trying to write a letter to Ben Dixon's parents informing them of Ben's death...He suffers a vision of Ben's phantom:
  Rick: Ben?
  Ben's Phantom: "Don't worry about, it was just my time to go..."

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