Well, among other things, they got caught up in a war with the Regent's half of the Invid. Apparently after freeing Tirol, the REF were basically devoting their full resources to liberating more than half-a-dozen planets belonging to the Sentinels, as well as dealing with Edwards' inner treachery, and did I mention battling the Regent's equivalent of what the Regess brought to Earth (which was more than enough to take it over). Other factors would've been waiting for a new Protoculture Matrix to be constructed for the SDF-3, setting up Space Station Liberty for contact with Earth, and building colonies on Mars and around Jupiter presumably to keep portions of the human race scattered to avoid complete extinction.
Then you have to take into account that the REF did send troops back to Earth at a few points between the Second and Third Robotech Wars, including Major Carpenter's battle-fortress in 2029, the offscreen Jonathan Wolfe's forces around June 2030 (which evidently included Lunk and the old geezer vets from later in New Generation), Lancer's 10th Mars Division in 2038, and Scott's 21st Mars Division in 2042. Keep in mind also, apparently the SDF-3 had some distant involvement in Scott's fleet offensive, as the SDF-3 ("Admiral Hunter's flagship") was giving the key order to attack. 2042 is also probably around the time Prelude Chapter 1 began, with Edwards killing Lynn Kyle, as the term "decades" is emphasized since the Pioneer Mission began.
In the end, it's mostly left up to viewer assumptions and small stuff like what Carpenter tells Leonard in "Outsiders". We got roughly 20 years of offscreen mystery which hasn't and may never be answered, that's about all the in-universe explaining I can think of in regards to the story. For a more obvious and blunt explanation...
It's because Robotech, as brilliant as the interweaved story is, was made up of three different animated shows and thus new casts of characters had to be come up with for each following saga. This is why, aside from the key exception of the Sentinels movie (which was American produceD), we never see Rick Hunter again until the Prelude comics and Shadow Chronicles movie. The writers were clever enough in other character points, like making the main character of The Masters Dana Sterling (which even allowed a cameo instance, even if vague and very brief, of her parents in that arc's last ep), but it seems the best that could be done with Rick was his status as a prominent offscreen character in The New Generation.
I hope I was able to answer some of your questions.
Any Buffyverse comic that's post-"Not Fade Away" is non-canon, my PoV says. Denny Crane!
reply
share