Western Animation / Exo Squad

"Humans are great creators, Lieutenant, though often unaware of the consequences of their gift."

— Marsala

A Western-made Real Robot Mecha Show produced in 1993 by Will Meugniot and Universal Cartoon Studios for first-run syndication (with later reruns on Universal-owned USA Network).

Exo Squad is set in the 22nd century, when Humans have fully terraformed and colonized Venus and Mars. The Neosapiens, an artificially engineered race created to be slaves for the Terrans, have Turned Against Their Masters and formed the Neosapien Order/Empire/Commonwealth. Under the rule of the calculating Governor General Phaeton, the Neosapiens have launched an invasion of Earth and Venus.

The story focuses on the ExoFleet, the Homeworlds' space navy (in particular, Able Squad, a group of Exo-Frame pilots led by Lieutenant J.T. Marsh), as they fight against the invasion in a war that would last from 2119 to 2121.

Exo Squad has been commonly compared to Mobile Suit Gundam, both in quality and the maturity of the themes portrayed in the series. In addition, Will Meugniot himself made a direct comparison to the Gundam series, saying that Gundam is similar to the Pacific Theater of World War II, while Exo Squad is the European Theater. Among animation fans, it's often compared with Gargoyles, Batman: The Animated Series, and Avatar: The Last Airbender as an example of how Western animation can be every bit as mature and well-made as the best Anime. Surprising, considering what studio was behind the animation. Lastly, Exosquad has been favorably compared to Robotech and it wasn't surprising when an extension to the toyline (made by Playmates Toys) included re-issues of some of the Matchbox Robotech mecha under the Exosquad/Robotech label. During the series' second season, it was paired with another Universal action series, Monster Force.

Legal issues (apparently) prevented Exo Squad's DVD release for quite some time—long enough that many fans thought that it would never happen. Releases finally began in April 2009, and there was much rejoicing (yay), though they still haven't gotten around to releasing season 2. While it was on Hulu for a while, it sadly left. It's now streaming once again via the NBC/Universal streaming service Peacock.

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Tropes:

• The '90s: Though explicitly set far in the 22nd century, most characters' outfit coloration and hairstyles (not to mention the color schemes for most of the E-Frames) just scream 90s.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers of Phaeton City serve as the Resistance HQ and are larger enough for large E-Frames to pass through.
• Accidental Aiming Skills
• Action Figure File Card: The toys had them.
• Air-Vent Passageway
• Anime Hair: Although not as outrageous as regular anime hair, the hairstyles of the 22nd century Earth are really weird. Random strips of people's (both male and female) hair are shaved. Hairstyles that are a random mix of mohawks and mullets? A weird mix of crew cuts and Afros? It defies description.
  • Justified with military personnel. E-Frames are operated by having the pilot connect through a cyberjack port located at the base of their skulls. Shaved strips and caps provide easier access. Even Kaz Takagi required one despite the rest of his hair being a mullet.
    • Could also be an example of The Producer Thinks of Everything, given the real-life tendency of civilian fashions to draw inspiration from the military.
• Antimatter: Phaeton's Doomsday Device in his final appearances is an antimatter bomb.
• Anyone Can Die: For an American cartoon, a shocking number of people die. Including James, Nara's younger brother, and Alec Deleon, both of which were very shocking.
• Applied Phlebotinum: The pirates' Dark Matter cloaks, the GRAF weapon.
• Arm Cannon: Staple of the E-Frames.
• Artificial Gravity: The first episode had it disabled on a cargo vessel that had been attacked by Space Pirates, though the animators apparently couldn't decide whether to go with no or full gravity (or magnetic boots). The GRAF (GRAvity Focus) shield is a weaponized application of gravity, in spite of its defensive-sounding name.
• Badass Bystander: From time to time, we see what would normally be Red Shirts kicking rather impressive amounts of ass when Able Squad isn't around. Many of them still die, of course, but they never go down like chumps.
• Beast and Beauty: Nara Burns and Marsala, slightly subverted as Marsala is a very dependable individual despite what Terrans might think of him. Becomes heavily deconstructed in-story due to their individual status as a Terran and a Neosapien make any attempt at having a future relationship impossible, personally and biologically, not to mention hardly accepted due to the two races being at war at the time.
• Big Damn Heroes: Quite a few times, Able Squad would be in danger and one member, usually after resolving their own subplot for the episode, would show up to their rescue.
• The Big Rotten Apple: Make that the Big Deserted Apple — JT crash lands there in season 2, and it's a bombed-out shell of a city, with only a few scavengers struggling to survive. JT does run into a helpful Terran while he's there, but in order to shake a Neo Warrior, he ends up blowing up the Statue of Liberty's torch.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • The Terrans enslaved the Neosapiens for a long time. They were only freed because they revolted and took their freedom. However, since then, humans have been reasonably amicable (well, some of them) to the Neos. Also, the humans are being driven to extinction; they're fighting only because they have to. Gray.
  • The Neosapiens were slaves for many years and had to fight for their freedom. They constantly have to prove themselves to many humans, and some never see them as equals. But they are launching a war of annihilation against humanity; the current slave status of humanity is temporary until more Neos can be born, though not all Neosapiens agree with exterminating humanity. Gray, with the leadership bordering on Black.
  • The Pirates, given their backstory, are barely surviving out in the vast emptiness at the edge of the solar system. They prey on ships for survival. Gray.
  • Phaeton, however, is what really puts the Black into the series. In the first Neosapien rebellion, he sold out the rebel leadership (including Marsalla) just to save his own skin. His current war is all about himself and what he wants, not about the overall Neosapien cause. He's willing to engineer anything from super-strong Neos to a new race of super-smart ones (that were likely going to do to him what he did to humans) Personal loyalty to Phaeton is what keeps you alive, not loyalty to the Neosapien cause. Phaeton is using the general feelings of his people to propel himself to power, nothing more.
• Blob Monster: Thanks to genetic experimentation by some Neo Megas, a Neosapien turns into this, with the added bonus of Voluntary Shapeshifting.
• Bloodless Carnage: Even despite people getting injured and often outright killed, we never see any blood or cuts on anyone. There's also a suspicious lack of dead bodies in a show that wasn't afraid to kill people, though in many cases ships and E-frames getting blown up by energy weapons in space can justify the lack of bodies left behind.
• Body Horror:
  • Automutation Syndrome, a Neosapien degrading disease that causes their bodies to begin breaking down, essentially liquefying while still alive to feel it.
  • Some of Ketzer's plant-people too.
• Book Ends: In the first episode, Sean Napier saves Phaeton from an assassination attempt, even though he's prejudiced against Neosapiens (he even refuses to shake Phaeton's hand). In the last episode, Shiva saves Napier's life, and Shiva refuses to shake Napier's hand.
• Brain/Computer Interface: The E-frame steering is twofold: the ground movement (walking) is synchronized with the pilot's leg movements, but aiming and flying are controlled via cyberjacks connecting directly to the pilot's brain via a socket at the back of his/her neck. This helpfully limits someone without this cybernetic implant attempting to hijack an E-frame.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: People travel between Earth, Mars, and Venus, as if it were to another country.
  • Actual travel times are never given, but the ExoFleet travels back and forth between the inner planets, and even makes a foray to a planet beyond the orbit of Pluto, over the course of a war that lasts three years. So yeah, those ships are pretty fast.
• The Chains of Commanding
• Chicken Walker: Both sides have E-frames built in this way.
• Color Wash: Orange and purple.
• Cool Ship: The Resolute II, the original Resolute, as well as Phaeton's flagship in Season 2... before it's destroyed going up against the Resolute II.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Received one from Topps Comics with an "issue Zero"; though intended to be the first of three, it was the only one, for some reason.
• Convection Shmonvection
• Creative Sterility: Neosapiens have the disadvantage of being programmed from conception to behave in specific parameters, making them overall less creative, imaginative, inventive, and versatile than humans are in general. Even the GRAF Shield that allowed Neosapiens to defend Venus was created by a human scientist, and human scientists were relied upon despite the Fantastic Racism towards humans due to Neosapien scientists being unable to create anything good. Neo Megas were an attempt to remove the need for human scientists by developing creatively-minded Neosapiens, but became (in Phaeton's view) too creative for their own good when they attempted to overthrow him.
• Custom Uniform: It would actually be easier to list the named characters who don't have a unique costume, among them Sean Napier, who spends most of the series wearing a slightly modified version of his old Chicago Police Department uniform, and Alec DeLeon, whose clothing and body armor are identical to those worn by the long line of nameless ExoFleet troopers seen boarding a transport craft in one of the first few episodes.
• Cut Short: The series ends on an unresolved Cliffhanger.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: At lot these occur on both sides of the war. When Captain Marcus was in control of the fleet it nearly escalated to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: Although the fleet put up a fight and got some hits in.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to other Saturday morning cartoons around the time, Exosquad was very dark when you consider that the entire series is about a small band of gruff soldiers fighting a hopeless war against an enemy that outnumbers them. Whenever our heroes reach a Hope Spot another major problem comes along and the episode ends on a tense cliffhanger. And, to make matters worse, they have to deal with traitors within their midst, family members being killed off during the war, a mutiny within the first half and revolutionaries back home who resent them. This is called The American Anime for a reason.
• Deadpan Snarker: Oddly enough, DeLeon's E-Frame, when Bronski is piloting it. At Bronski's expense.
• Decapitated Army: Phaeton is the only one keeping the Neosapien Commonwealth directed towards his goals. With Phaeton killed, most of the hostile Neosapiens surrender.
• Defector from Decadence: Many unnamed Neosapiens can be seen amongst the ExoFleet's ranks, though they are a very underrepresented minority.
• Designer Babies: The Neosapiens, were artificially created in a lab, as were their various spin-offs.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Not putting melee weapons onto the Exoframes to deal with the Neo Warriors and Neo Lords, thus the Exoframes being mostly helpless whenever they get to melee range.
  • The making of the Neosapiens. Leaving aside the ethical concerns of creating a Slave Race aside, maybe making it so said slave race both is physically superior to humans and even has an intellect on par with them, and having them perform forced menial labor wasn't such a good idea, guys.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Automutation Syndrome is the Neosapien equivalent to cancer, being a difficult (if not impossible) disease to cure that can be triggered seemingly at random or from extreme trauma, that degrades the body over time. Several Neos state it's the one thing almost all Neosapiens fear more than anything. Phaeton has it, which results in his steady Sanity Slippage.
• Drop Pod: Small ones for the Jumptroopers, and larger ones for the E-Frames.
• Drop Ship: For the Jumptroopers.
• Duct Tape for Everything: Some of the Earth resistances' E-Frames' weapons are being held together by duct tape.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Mars (it got better), Earth (attempted only), but not the tenth (INCLUDING Pluto) planet Chaos, which instead got transported elsewhere.
• Eerie Arctic Research Station: In the second season, the title squad accidentally discovers a Neosapien research facility hidden in the Antarctica, which turns out to be researching and producing the first batch of Neo Lords.
• Egopolis: Chicago is renamed Phaeton City once the Neosapiens take over the Homeworlds.
• Eiffel Tower Effect: The ruins of the Sydney Harbour and the Opera House so viewers know the action take place in Australia. Same with the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
• '80s Hair
• Enemy Mine: Between the Exo-Fleet and the Space Pirates so they can defeat the Phaeton and the Neosapiens.
• Environment-Specific Action Figure: Later waves of the toyline got into some weird territory, such as a variant on JT's E-Frame that could turn into a half-assed motorcycle.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Dogs tend to act hostile towards Neosapiens due to emitting different pheromones than humans. This is one of the threads Marsala uses to piece together that the Alice Noretti that Able Squad encountered was a Neosapien infiltrator.
• Evil Genius: The Neo Megas, Praetorius, Ketzer. Xenobius tries to fake being one.
• Evolutionary Levels: Invoked with the Neo Megas, who were engineered to be smarter and more creative than Neosapiens and are thusly smaller, slighter and have visibly larger craniums.
• Expendable Clone: Neosapiens are artificially engineered from chemical substances in large batches called "broods". As a result, it's easy for them to be cloned. In season two, Phaeton develops a habit of keeping clones of his more important officers to replace the originals if they get killed — as well as a willingness to kill them himself and then activate a clone. It's hinted that this "execute then replace with a clone" idea is part of the madness being caused by Phaeton's Automutation Syndrome.
• Facial Markings: Neosapiens have a pattern on their foreheads, which is different for each individual.
• Fantastic Racism: There's plenty of this on both sides of the war. There was already a fair amount of prejudice against the Neosapiens (as witnessed by the derogatory term "Sapes") even before the war, and the Neosapiens themselves are pretty strongly prejudiced against humans (often referring to them dismissively as "Terrans" and sometimes just "Vermin").
• Final Battle: Starting from Episode 48 in "The Fall of the Neosapien Empire, Part 2". The ExoFleet arrives on Earth to retake it from Phaeton. From then on to episode 51, we see ExoFleet fighting from space, Earth resistance forces from America to Australia fighting, the Able Squad and C5 Jumptroops fighting in their areas. Any characters that we have seen are shown at least once. For one scene, we see the whole Earth with little explosions to show the Final Battle is everywhere.
• Flying Car: Being the future, they come in different shapes and models.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Neosapiens are an unusual variant; they have two thumbs; one on each side of the palm, and two "pointer" fingers in the center. The artwork can be a little conflicting, but Neo Megas seem to have three fingered hands. Also, Neosapiens seem to have feet that resemble their hands, two thumbs on the ends with two middle toes.
• Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The Neosapiens were genetically engineered, and Phaeton turns to genetically modifying the Neosapiens further to create offshoots in the second season.
• Graffiti of the Resistance: Some of the Terran Resistance fighters are often seen spraying graffiti onto walls, calling to resist the Neosapien rule.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: Averted. The female Neosapiens are rendered almost the same as male Neosapiens, and not particularly sexualized.
• Guns Akimbo: Many Jumptroopers like having two guns.
• Heel–Face Turn: The Pirate Clans
  • This is also Marsala's backstory— he was a rebel leader in the first war. (Well, sorta. It's kinda tough to cast the Neosapiens as villains in their first war as they were just fighting for their freedom—nothing like the megalomania that typified Phaeton's leadership in the second. You could say that the Neosapien liberation movement as a whole underwent a Face–Heel Turn instead.)
• Hired by the Oppressor: Subverted. Once the Neosapiens take over Earth, they began employing cooperative humans as figureheads to keep the rest of their human masses in line, with Phaeton revealing he planned on killing off ALL humanity once the humans' usefulness had ended.
• Humans by Any Other Name: Humans in this show are exclusively referred to as Terrans... even if they were born on Venus.
• Hurl It into the Sun: How Neos "exile" dissident humans.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Plenty of 'em.
  Captain Butler: The only heroes I've ever seen were dead!
• Hover Tank: Even with E-Frames around, the Neosapiens make use of hover tanks.
• Humongous Mecha: The occasional example turns up, though they are rare. The ExoFleet has at least one that comes complete with its own torso-mounted hangar bay for launching E-Frames.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Or rather, If You're So Evil, Mind Rape your commanding officer. He does. Otherwise, he would have been found out as a Fake Defector.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: All factions are lousy shots, unless the plot says otherwise.
• In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face
• Instrumental Theme Tune: The second season.
• Insufferable Genius: The Neo Megas.
• Invisibility Cloak: The Pirate Clans' ability to cloak their ships is their main advantage over the ExoFleet, and are willing to share once the two join forces.
• Irony: In creating the Neo Megas, the Neosapien regime makes the same mistake humanity did by making an intelligent Slave Race capable of plotting against them.
• ISO Standard Human Spaceship: The Resolute and most of the ExoFleet. The Pirate vessels have more elaborate tribal decorations and colors, and Neosapien ships are built to nonhuman aesthetics and primarily purple.
• Jet Pack: Used by the E-Frames and the infantries.
• Killed Off for Real: Subverted multiple times with Neosapien cloning and memory-transfer technology.
  • It should be noted that not everyone who died got cloned, and most characters who were cloned were eventually killed off again. Sometimes twice.
• Latex Spacesuit
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Thrax, the ace Neosapien E-Frame pilot from the second season, pilots a distinctive red version of the Neosapien "mini-ship" E-Frames.
• Left Hanging: While the main conflict regarding Phaeton is resolved by the end of the series, the last few minutes of the final episode has Starfish Aliens steal the planet Chaos to set up a spin-off and third season that both never materialized.
• LEGO Genetics: Each breed of Neo Warrior combines Neo Sapian DNA with one species of animal, scorpion, raptor, etc. Neo Lords combine Neo DNA with DNA taken from numerous other sources.
• Literal Cliff Hanger
• Macross Missile Massacre: Everybody love firing missiles, from fighters to E-Frames to Spaceships.
• Merchandise-Driven: The show was based on a toy line, after all. The fact that they managed to create a great series was just a bonus.
  • Also, some of the toys got pretty weird: why would they make E-Frames modeled after fire trucks◊ and football players◊? Not to mention the variant on JT Marsh's E-Frame that could turn into a motorcycle for no real reason...
• Mid-Season Upgrade: The experimental equipment installed on the Able Squad's E-frames by Professor Algernon mid-series, including a cluster missile launcher, cloaking systems, a hologram projector, and the Solar Flare.
  • The Neo Warriors and Neo Lords are biological examples.
• Mildly Military: Not as bad as some shows, especially considering this is a cartoon, but Able Squad sure does get away with a lot. In the first episode Lt. Marsh leads an unplanned expedition to Olympus Mons on Mars, and Captain Marcus is about to punish them for it, until Admiral Winfield covers for them. They do get punished later, after the war starts, when Marcus takes command of the fleet and Marsh refuses to follow an order, on the grounds that Marcus' actions would lead to everyone being killed, and Marcus intends to execute Marsh for it. Marcus' plan nearly does get everyone killed, until Winfield resumes command, and Marsh's sentence is reduced from death to a year in the brig, a punishment shared by the rest of Able squad for breaking Marsh out to save him from execution. Under Admiral Winfield, they never really had issue with any of his orders. Also, the rank system seems a bit vague at times. Able Squad has three lieutenants in it, one sergeant, and the rest are presumably Exo Troopers (which is probably equivalent to Private). Maggie Weston is a technician, and therefore probably not in the normal chain of command, but that doesn't explain why both Marsh and Burns are lieutenants. (The closest thing to an explanation is a brief segment narrated by Admiral Winfield which talks about how some people say that Burns is inexperienced, implying that perhaps she was a fresh graduate from officer training at the start of the series then assigned under a more experienced officer to learn the trade.) This gets cleared up later in the show when Marsh is promoted to Commander. To add to the confusion, in one episode, a character talks about when Lt. Marsh was an Ensign, adding to the difficulty in determining if E-Frame pilots use Army or Navy ranks.
• Military Alphabet: Able Exotroop Squad, Charlie Jumptroop Squad Platoon 5, etc.
  • Interestingly, the show uses WW2 alphabet instead of modern one, probably, to further emphasize the historical parallels between it and the Neosapien War.
• Mind Probe: Employed by the Neosapiens against their prisoners.
• Mini-Mecha: The eponymous Exo-Frames (or E-Frames) of the series. The smaller E-Frames fit somewhere between Mini-Mecha and Powered Armor (the average E-Frame looks like a Power Loader from Aliens, but with weapons, armor, and flight thrusters bolted on). There are also larger E-Frames which are quite definitely Mini-Mecha, as well as some frames which look more like air/spacecraft rather than humanoid robots, but the smaller E-Frames are vaunted for their mix of speed, maneuverability, and flexibility in load-out/configuration, as well as having a disproportionate amount of firepower for their size and a not insignificant amount of armor. This makes them something of a Jack of All Trades within the setting.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Neo Warriors and the Neo Lords.
• The Mole: Marduk, Alice Noretti or, rather, her clone.
• Multinational Team: The Able Squad. Let's see: JT is most likely North American, Alec is French, Bronsky is from Eastern Europe, Takagi may have Japanese roots, Maggie seems to be from somewhere around the Pacific, Nara is Venusian, and Marsala is Martian/Neosapien. Torres is the only one whose background is a mystery.
• My Brain Is Big: The Neosapiens have it in general, but it's much more noticeable in the genetically engineered Neo Megas, which were designed to be smarter and more creative than the normal Neosapiens. Perhaps justified- it's shown that aside from improved intelligence, Neo Megas have other abilities that Terrans and regular Neosapiens lack. This could translate into Neo Megas having an extra lobe or two in their brains.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: While the vast majority of the Neosapiens fought to conquer the homeworlds, aside from Marsala, there were other Neosapiens who served with ExoFleet (mentioned but rarely shown), and there were Neosapien sympathizers like Mardek providing intel to the ExoFleet.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Neosapiens and deliberately paralleled right down to the nationalism, propaganda, and concentration camps for Terrans.
• Nicknaming the Enemy: The Terrans use either "Neos" or "Sapes" for Neosapiens. The first one is PC, while the second is a Fantastic Slur, as Marsh points out once.
  • It's also somewhat nonsensical as a slur, as "Neosapien" is obviously derived from the scientific name for humans: "Homo sapiens". But then, language doesn't always make sense.
• No Delays for the Wicked: In "Mindset", Napier and the Able Squad abuse Neosapiens' flawlessly functioning infrastructure to covertly move across Earth's surface.
• Nonuniform Uniform
• Only Six Faces: Neosapiens have limited physical variety, so they use facial tattoos to distinguish individuals. Observant viewers will be able to tell some differences without the broodmarks.
  • This is played with in the show; it's stated that the broodmarks are there because Terrans can't be bothered to tell the difference.
• Opening Narration: In the first season.
• Orbital Bombardment: The Exo-Fleet during the retake of Venus.
• Organic Technology: The alien radio transmitter on Mars has an outside of steel, but an extremely biological interior.
• Outrun the Fireball: When they destroy a fusion pulse cannon from within, they have to outrun a massive fireball. Also happens to the entire planet Mars when the alien transmitter goes critical.
• People Jars: Neosapien brooding labs.
• Planet Terra: The baseline humans are referred to as "Terrans" to distinguish them from Neosapiens and get around the small fact that both races are human, regardless of the fact that they don't call Earth "Terra", or that many humans are natives of Venus or the moons of the outer planets.
• Powered Armor: Most of the E-Frames are Mini-Mecha, with some of the smaller ones looking like very large Powered Armor, but the Jumptroopers' armor definitely fits the classic Powered Armor mold.
• Previously on…: "Last time on Exosquad" (as voiced by Beau Weaver, who also voiced the original intro and the commercial bumpers). It was only in the first season, however.
• Propaganda Piece: The entire episode "Mindset" was dedicated to Neosapien propaganda and Terran collaborators.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Simbacca, and all the Pirate Clans. Justified, as prolonged exposure to the dark matter they use for their cloaking technology affected their brains, making them aggressive and reckless.
  • The Neo Megas can communicate with each other across large distances using super-sonic frequencies. Functionally, it's indistinguishable from telepathy except dogs can hear it too.
• Puny Earthlings: Neosapiens are stronger, tougher, have sharper senses, can survive in more extreme environments, need less food, live longer, mature faster, have Photographic Memory, and don't have to sleep. The only advantage humans have is adaptable thinking, which the Neos are somewhat lacking in.
  • And of course, numbers.
• The Purge: After a group of Neomegas conspire to perform a coup against Phaeton, Phaeton has every Neomega killed except Galba, due to a mistaken assumption that Galba was arrested for being loyal to Phaeton.
• Ramming Always Works: Subverted
• Readings Are Off the Scale: One bridge officer reports electrical readings off the chart when the GRAF shield on Venus is activated.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Glycon, Thrax' original commander was extremely reasonable on Mercury, and had keen insights into the war. He foresaw that their attempt to displace the Fleet from Mercury was likely doomed, but led the assault himself and insisted that Thrax take over and not waste lives trying to fulfill an impossible mission if he should die in battle.
• Red Shirt: At one point a new member joins Able Squad, and is killed less than a minute later. She gets better... a way.
• Redshirt Army: In many missions, Able Squad is seen with other fellow E-Frame squads. Many of them will die.
• The Remnant:
  • For most of the length of the show, the Terran ExoFleet.
  • After Terrans retake Venus, some of the Neosapien garrisons become guerrillas, hoping that Phaeton would send more reinforcements to rescue them. The reinforcements never reach the Venusian surface.
• La Résistance: The Earth Resistance, The Venusian Resistance.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The Neosapiens launch a prison ship from Earth to Venus. They jettison the cargo carrying the prisoners into the sun, while they are still close to Venus. The release should have occurred much later as Venus isn't even close to the sun.^note For those who want the math, Venus is 67,240,000 miles from the sun. To reach the destination inside a week, the ship throwing the cargo would've had to be travelling at 400,238 miles per hour, or well over 500 times the speed of sound. Within the episode, it's stated they have "less than an hour" before they'll "burn up in the sun."
• Shout-Out:
  • The season two episode The Art of War is essentially a remake of The Train.
  • Also, Dark River has multiple allusions to Apocalypse Now.
  • The Jumptroops are an homage to the Mobile Infantry from the Starship Troopers novel. They're even shown moving "on the bounce" in combat.
  • The Repair/Maintenance E-frame that Maggie pilots resembles the Power Loader from Aliens.
  • The events of the season two episode Crawling Flesh can be seen as one to The Thing (1982), revolving as they do around an amorphous life-form that kills and replicates human victims (and also both being Universal productions).
  • The Neo Megas' plans to use the GRAF Shield as bait to destroy the Exo-Fleet is taken from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
• Slave Race: The Neosapiens were originally created like this. Later, Phaeton's bunch of Neosapiens try to make their own slave soldiers in the Neo Warriors.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The extremely serious and epic closing credits theme song, superimposed over the giggling airplane cartoon logo for Universal Cartoon Studios (and to a lesser extent, the MCA TV logo).
• Space Fighter: Both sides make use of them in their armies.
• Space Is an Ocean: Averted. In space battles, the E-Frames zip around like angry bees, and the ships move in on each other from all directions.
• Space Pirates: The Pirate Clans. Culturally, they're more like space Vikings... or, sticking with the WWII theme, the isolationist USA.
• Spiritual Successor: Robotech to such a degree that Matchbox's Robotech toys were re-released under the combined Exosquad/Robotech label.
• Spoiler Title: Quite a few.
• The Squad: Able Squad and, in season 2, Jumptrooper squad Charlie-5.
• Stealth in Space: The Pirate Clans make regular use of invisibility cloaks in their ships.
• Story Arc: Both a major one for the series (the struggle between the Terrans and the Neosapiens) and smaller four or five episode arcs, with each arc typically centering on a particular planet.
• Straight for the Commander: In the first battle for Earth, the Able Squad is able to turn the tide of battle in Terran favor by assaulting the enemy flagship, buying the Terran fleet time to escape the massacre more or less intact.
• Strong as They Need to Be: The show is wildly inconsistent with how powerful weapons are, and how easily Exo-Frames can shrug off damage. Sometimes only explosives damage E-Frames, sometimes blaster fire will. Blaster fire's threat level against softer targets can also range from knocking someone out to killing them. (The latter, at least, could be chalked up to adjustable power levels.)
• Super-Persistent Predator: The Neo Warriors. With their acute senses, they relentlessly pursue their prey.
• Super-Soldier: The Neosapiens, while not bred for war, are built pretty well for it. Later, they make actual super soldiers of their own.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: A TV reporter has unfettered, un-escorted access to the bridge of the ExoFleet's capital ship during military operations. Winfield insists the camera be turned off the second he noticed it, however, at least reducing the potential for a security leak.
• Thememobile: The Exo-Fleet, which has Exo-Carriers, Exo-Cruisers, and Exo-Frames (called E-Frames for short).
• Theme Naming: Exo-everything
• Thrown Out the Airlock: During the climax of "The Last Man," a hangar door is openend and a Neo Mega ends up in the vacuum of space, while several memebrs of the ExoFleet nearly join him. Later, in "Flesh Crawls," a shape-shifter opens a hangar door, which results in two pirates being spaced and Maggie Weston nearly joining them.
• Time Skip:
  • One year has passed after episode 5. J.T. and his crew spent the whole time in the brig for mutiny.
  • Three months pass after the GRAF shield is taken offline on Earth.
• Token Heroic Orc: We see a few Neosapiens serving in ExoFleet against Phaeton's regime.
• Tractor Beam: Mounted on capital ships, and typically used for a tow.
• Trojan Prisoner: The first three times a Neo Mega is captured by ExoFleet. The first one feigns death, then escapes the morgue and tries to sabotage the ship. The second one deliberately allows himself to be captured so he can use his supersonic signals to lead the Neosapiens to the headquarters of the Phaeton City branch of the resistance. The third time, it's an insane victim of Automutation Syndrome with the ability to shapeshift posing as a Neo Mega they assimilated.
• True Companions
• Turned Against Their Masters: The Neosapiens did in the prelude to the series justifiably, then do so again much less justifiably. Later, the Neosapiens' first developed variant, the Neo Megas, turn on them.
• Unstable Genetic Code: The Auto-Mutation Syndrome.
• War Is Hell: Between genocides, slavery, torture, prison camps, starvations, mass destruction weapons, it's not a pretty picture for anyone.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: The whole reason the Neosapiens exist is because of this trope; they were bred to be slave-laborers. Before them, the ancestors of the Space Pirate clans were convicts forced to labor under brutal conditions on Saturn, who were then abandoned there to die when the Neosapiens were successfully created. In both cases, this came back to bite humanity. Hard.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • In a brief scene in the final episode of season one, it seems the Able Squad's E-Frames somehow became self-aware, prompting Marsala to quip the opening quote of this article. It is never explained, and it wasn't followed up because the E-Frames were submerged in lava.
  • The final fate of the Neo Warriors and Neo Lords. They aren't seen in the prison camps and no one speaks of them (it's likely their fate would've been expanded upon in the unproduced third season).

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