Housing for full sized Zentraedi

[glitterboy2098]

this is something that never appeared in the show to my knowledge, but is defiantly something that would come up in the game.

during the early reconstruction, there were still full sized zentraedi living alongside humans. these zentraedi appeared to be living normal lives, working jobs, etc. so where did these giants live? what did their living spaces look like? they clearly aren't living outside under the sky.

my assumption would be their housing was built much like an airplane hanger or large warehouse.. large buildings with 50ft tall interior space. which would then be partitioned into 2-4 'apartments' for individual zents, or one big common room with partitions to isolate off sleeping areas. perhaps the beds and other fittings were stripped from the quarters zentreadi wrecks.

[Arnie100]

With constant playing of Minmei music...

[taalismn]

And evidentaly, from the line art, canyon-like streets with Zentraedi access through LA-like storm drainage canals. Apparently so the Zentraedi would be eye-to-eye with their micronian neighbors, rather than looking down on them from 'oops, didn't see you down there!' height. I'd also presume that such thoroughfares had micronian vehicular and pedestrian bridges over them, otherwise landscaping your community in such a manner for Zentraedi would pose massive inconveniences for people trying to get across town quickly(just look at the arguments people have over elevated highways partitioning cities today).

[Jefffar]

Think of the unused sports stadiums.

[taalismn]

Think of the unused sports stadiums.

Old cooling towers for that matter, too.

[glitterboy2098]

And evidentaly, from the line art, canyon-like streets with Zentraedi access through LA-like storm drainage canals. Apparently so the Zentraedi would be eye-to-eye with their micronian neighbors, rather than looking down on them from 'oops, didn't see you down there!' height. I'd also presume that such thoroughfares had micronian vehicular and pedestrian bridges over them, otherwise landscaping your community in such a manner for Zentraedi would pose massive inconveniences for people trying to get across town quickly(just look at the arguments people have over elevated highways partitioning cities today).

this one i'm not sure we see in robotech. certainly the macross sequals had it, but in robotech the cities we see seem more human centric than zentraedi. New Macross City certainly is, and if Monument started as more zentraedi centric, it had a major makeover after the ASC moved in.

(interestingly, many of the buildings seen in new monument city in masters saga seem simialr to the buildings in some of the more 'modern' looking towns in new gen..
New Monument vs "Lonely soldier boy" town
Monument city vs Rook's hometown

also interestingly:
New macross City vs Soldiertown

while obviously not the same buildings, the styles are certainly very similar. (more so than you'd expect from unrelated shows.. serendipity)

[Jefffar]

Also, in the older background material there was a forced micronization of the Zentraedi.

[ShadowLogan]

I can see several additional options:
1. transplant internal structures from the Zentreadi ships outside
2. Zentreadi ships themselves might provide direct housing. We know some cities contained crash sites, so the ships could be used for this. What the overall status of the ships is unknown in the animation (PC, required repairs, etc).
3. While not in the animation, the Zentreadi could have portable structures they use for ground forces on protracted assignments for housing and such. These could be simple tents, or something more durable.

[glitterboy2098]

Also, in the older background material there was a forced micronization of the Zentraedi.

that is in the new RPG as well.. it's in the 'history of the ASC' section of masters saga sourcebook. at some point after leonard get's his position as alongside the hunters as the heads of the UEDF (with 'peacekeeping' being his specific focus at the time), he gets mandatory micronization made law.

but prior to then full sized zents were around.. and odds are it took years to get some areas of the UEG to comply with the requirement (not everyone would have sizing chambers, some city-states might have dragged their feet on implimenting it to preserve their giant sized workers, there were probably a lot of groups trying to get the law overturned, etc. the UEG post-1st war is a collection of city-states, not a monolithic global entity.)

and those nations/city-states outside the UEG (and 2nd ed still indicates they existed, just gives no specific info) wouldn't necessarily have implemented similar laws.

[Seto Kaiba]

during the early reconstruction, there were still full sized zentraedi living alongside humans. these zentraedi appeared to be living normal lives, working jobs, etc. so where did these giants live? what did their living spaces look like? they clearly aren't living outside under the sky.

my assumption would be their housing was built much like an airplane hanger or large warehouse.. large buildings with 50ft tall interior space. which would then be partitioned into 2-4 'apartments' for individual zents, or one big common room with partitions to isolate off sleeping areas. perhaps the beds and other fittings were stripped from the quarters zentreadi wrecks.

Unfortunately, in Macross the post-war living arrangements of the ~8 million Zentradi who survived the First Space War and became citizens of the New UN Government are not elaborated on in any detail except to say that most successfully integrated into human society after the majority of the malcontents wiped themselves out in Quamzin's suicidal attack on Macross City in January 2012.

Based on what little information is available, I would expect two sets of circumstances existing more or less side-by-side:

1. Among Zentradi who have not yet been micloned, or who are engaged in heavy labor-related jobs where they have to remain at giant size, I would expect the New UN Government and/or whatever company they happen to be working for to provide barrack hall-style living accommodations like those on Zentradi Army warships. They'd just need a large building like an airship hangar or particularly high-ceilinged warehouse and to erect bunk beds and other fittings (either copied from or salvaged from Zentradi ships) to give them a familiar setting for comfort's sake.
2. Zentradi in cities and towns where there is relatively free access to micloning systems (like Trad City, the city Quamzin nicked his micloning system from) the Zentradi citizenry may be living and taking their leisure at miclone size and only enlarging themselves to their original giant size when the situation requires it as seen in the later Macross titles... most notably with SMS's Cpt. Klan Klan and the rest of Pixie Platoon, who are shown at miclone size normally and at giant size only when on a combat rotation or taking leisure time in the Zentradi sections of the ship like Island 3's Folmo Mall. (I confess I find this latter one mildly amusing, if only because of the implication of a giant robot coat check somewhere offscreen where they leave their giant scale clothes when they miclone.)

In the Macross OSM, the latter was probably the more common of the two... especially since there were plenty of Zentradi whose jobs had nothing to do with heavy labor, though I'd expect that the Zentradi involved in certain industries would have better accommodations, like the Zentradi pro athletes and film stars.

this one i'm not sure we see in robotech. certainly the macross sequals had it, but in robotech the cities we see seem more human centric than zentraedi. New Macross City certainly is, and if Monument started as more zentraedi centric, it had a major makeover after the ASC moved in.

The cities in the latter sagas are obviously going to be human-centric since there were no giant aliens in the other two original shows... but Scott's implication in the series that the Zentradi are extinct or close to it after the First Robotech War may have a lot to do with that in Robotech.

while obviously not the same buildings, the styles are certainly very similar. (more so than you'd expect from unrelated shows.. serendipity)

It's a pretty generic near-future aesthetic that was used in a lot of shows in the mid-to-late 80's... but it probably helps that all three shows had the same production house doing the animation.

Also, in the older background material there was a forced micronization of the Zentraedi.

It wasn't so much "forced" as "strongly encouraged" in the original Macross timeline from which Robotech nicked the idea... at least, not early on. During the timeskip between Ep27 and Ep28, over 50% of the ~8 million Zentradi on Earth were micloned and living normally among humanity. In Macross it didn't become compulsory until November 2030, after a second revolt by giant Zentradi living on Earth that was orchestrated by Zentradi terrorist groups culminated in the Second Defensive Battle of Macross City. (The law only applied to Earth's surface, so Zentradi and Meltrandi living in space weren't affected.)

[filo_clarke]

Wow, this brings up so many side-questions. Like, a full sized Zentraedi must consume TONS of food and water per day (literally, tons). Also the amount of "waste" they produce would be titanic. Unless they were still living on their ships and using the recycling facilities therein, a clan of full sized Zents would be a major problem for any community.

[Chris0013]

Very large barracks.

[Arnie100]

I'd hate to be the janitor...

[Chris0013]

I'd hate to be the janitor...

Imagine having to deal with the clogged toilet....

[Seto Kaiba]

Wow, this brings up so many side-questions. Like, a full sized Zentraedi must consume TONS of food and water per day (literally, tons). Also the amount of "waste" they produce would be titanic. Unless they were still living on their ships and using the recycling facilities therein, a clan of full sized Zents would be a major problem for any community.

One has to wonder where the giant-sized cigarettes, liquor bottles, and man-sized chicken drumsticks came from...

The resource requirements of a giant Zentradi population are why, in the original Macross, Zentradi are required to be miclone-sized in almost every emigrant fleet.

[Chris0013]

Wow, this brings up so many side-questions. Like, a full sized Zentraedi must consume TONS of food and water per day (literally, tons). Also the amount of "waste" they produce would be titanic. Unless they were still living on their ships and using the recycling facilities therein, a clan of full sized Zents would be a major problem for any community.

One has to wonder where the giant-sized cigarettes, liquor bottles, and man-sized chicken drumsticks came from...

The resource requirements of a giant Zentradi population are why, in the original Macross, Zentradi are required to be miclone-sized in almost every emigrant fleet.

using the sizing chamber on livestock??

[glitterboy2098]

cigarettes and liquor can be human made, just scaled up. the drumsticks are certainly trickier, but we see zentraedi with regualr looking food on their ships in a few scenes, so i'm an advocate of their ships having basically "3D printed food" capability.. where the ship builds proteins and carbs and the other chemical components of food from organic chemical feedstocks, and then combines them and shapes them to resemble actual food. the effect would be comparable to the 'protein sequencers" and "food slots" seen in Star Trek Enterprise and The Original Series, or the OMCS of Space battleship Yamato. this sort of technology would allow for all the zent sized foodstuffs we see, actually. and feedstocks could be obtained through recycling of organic wastes as well as processing of chemical sources. (since organic chemistry is largely based on hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, just about anything with a lot of those would be suitable sources for processing.. even petrochemicals and the like.) NASA is actually looking into similar technologies (much more primitive still IRL) for long duration spaceflights.


'food processors' of this sort would also help explain how the SDF-1 could support it's 70,000 person civilian passengers for over a year (when macross island was unlikely to have more than a week's worth of food onhand when it got folded.. and probably lost a lot of that to vacuum damage) after the SDF-1 got distribution issues sorted out, we rarely saw evidence of major food shortages or restricted variety, suggesting they'd found some sort of supply for the drastically larger ships compliment.. other than the basic survival packs they were giving the civilians right after the fold.

salvaged zent processors would also have been very useful during reconstruction.. while it is clear some of the more remote and damaged areas were still having supply issues (look at the place minmei was touring, and what they paid her in), even durign the early reconstruction we see a number of fairly thriving communities. many of which seem to be built around crashed zentraedi ships without much in the way of visible farming or ranching nearby. using zent food processors to make basic foodstuffs would help explain this.

[ShadowLogan]

using the sizing chamber on livestock??

Nothing indicates that it will or will not work. I am inclined to think it would not work because the sizing chamber involves 2 "capsules", so either the subject has DNA for different sizes or the chamber does the work. Since Zentreadi DNA isn't 100% human (though it fluctuates), it might not work on humans to turn them into giants by growing them a new clone body at the desired size.

One has to wonder where the giant-sized cigarettes, liquor bottles, and man-sized chicken drumsticks came from...

Why do we have to assume they are all terrestrial in origin at all?

Khyron is said to have gotten drunk (by Exedore IIRC in "Bye Bye Mars") well before reconstruction, so the Zentreadi could have a source of liquor already.

I would think that for reconstruction purposes, even two years in, that tobacoo plants would be low on priority for growable farmland. Though given the Zentreadi already have access to liquor it seems reasonable they might have other intoxicants or recreational drugs. A single Zentreadi cigarette likely probably close to a carton in terms of materials required (so they will be expensive).

Given the giant-size of the Zentreadi and a lack of explained reasons on the choice in size, it leaves 4 possibilities to explain the giant drumstick:
A. Zentreadi re-cloning process works on other creatures to re-size them (done for food)
B. it is "manufactured" meat/food-stuff to look like a giant drumstick for some reason(s)
C. when the Masters created the Zentreadi, they also created giant-size animals (and other parts of the ecosystem) to help feed them
D. there are (natural) giant animals in the galaxy(s) that can be prepared to yeild up a giant drumstick

I'm personally inclined toward B and D (tied), followed by C and then A.

'food processors' of this sort would also help explain how the SDF-1 could support it's 70,000 person civilian passengers for over a year (when macross island was unlikely to have more than a week's worth of food onhand when it got folded.. and probably lost a lot of that to vacuum damage) after the SDF-1 got distribution issues sorted out, we rarely saw evidence of major food shortages or restricted variety, suggesting they'd found some sort of supply for the drastically larger ships compliment.. other than the basic survival packs they were giving the civilians right after the fold.

The SDF-1 likely had several sources to draw food from, some of which might have been damaged but still edible (Rick & Minmei's tunafish):
-SDF-1 stores (how long was it supposed to operate on first flight w/o restocking?)
-2 Aircraft Carriers
-RDF Base on Macross Island
-Macross Island Shelter System (which would have been protected from vacuum damage, and potentially stocked for who knows how long)
-Macross City itself (warehouses, stores, restaurants, and homes though practical recovery from the last two seems unlikely for the effort)
-frozen ocean waters itself (if Rick and Minmei recovered a tunafish, what else might be in the water)

One of the reasons stated/implied for diverting to Mars base Sara was to replenish their supplies. And Sara Base likely was setup to go months long w/o a resupply flight (especially if a flight is lost or some other issue grounds them), though how many people are there and extent of the supplies isn't known.

[Sambot]

this one i'm not sure we see in robotech. certainly the macross sequals had it, but in robotech the cities we see seem more human centric than zentraedi. New Macross City certainly is, and if Monument started as more zentraedi centric, it had a major makeover after the ASC moved in.

The cities in the latter sagas are obviously going to be human-centric since there were no giant aliens in the other two original shows... but Scott's implication in the series that the Zentradi are extinct or close to it after the First Robotech War may have a lot to do with that in Robotech.

Was Scott talking about Zentraedi as a whole or just full size Zentraedi because it could be pretty hard to determine without DNA testing.

Wow, this brings up so many side-questions. Like, a full sized Zentraedi must consume TONS of food and water per day (literally, tons). Also the amount of "waste" they produce would be titanic. Unless they were still living on their ships and using the recycling facilities therein, a clan of full sized Zents would be a major problem for any community.

I'd hate to be the janitor...

Imagine having to deal with the clogged toilet....

I was wondering about this the other day. How many Miclones were hospitalized by full sized Zentraedi without them meaning it since a can of air freshener doesn't work on some Miclones.

[Peacebringer]

Food was the first thing I questioned; these guys burn a lot, I mean a lot of calories and Earth doesn't have the resources to sustain the Zentraedi.

[ShadowLogan]

Was Scott talking about Zentraedi as a whole or just full size Zentraedi because it could be pretty hard to determine without DNA testing.

You do not want to open up this can of worms.

Scott's statement doesn't use any adjectives to clarify Zentreadi into a sect (like all, all of a certain size, their culture, etc). Scott's statement implies the Zentreadi are gone. "So we’re supposed to surrender, is that what you’re proposing! This may come as a surprise to you, but I couldn’t care less whether the Invid survive or go the way of the Zentraedi. I’m not just going to roll over and play dead"-Scott Ep73 Sandstorm