How far away is Tirol?

[Robroy]

OK I know it is said that it is in the Southern Cross, but is that actually where it is? Or is it just in that direction?

Or is the distance not mentioned anywhere?

[Seto Kaiba]

OK I know it is said that it is in the Southern Cross, but is that actually where it is? Or is it just in that direction?

Or is the distance not mentioned anywhere?

Robotech is almost invariably frustratingly vague about locations and all but silent about distances unless that information was part of the dialog in the original three shows. Tirol doesn't exist in any of them, so its location isn't given in any precise terms.

(It may have been an attempt at a nod to the title of the original series, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, though admittedly the "Southern Cross" part of the title didn't make sense in the original either... the story being set on a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, which is nowhere near the constellation Crux or the stars that make it up.)

[Robroy]

OK I know it is said that it is in the Southern Cross, but is that actually where it is? Or is it just in that direction?

Or is the distance not mentioned anywhere?

Robotech is almost invariably frustratingly vague about locations and all but silent about distances unless that information was part of the dialog in the original three shows. Tirol doesn't exist in any of them, so its location isn't given in any precise terms.

(It may have been an attempt at a nod to the title of the original series, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, though admittedly the "Southern Cross" part of the title didn't make sense in the original either... the story being set on a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, which is nowhere near the constellation Crux or the stars that make it up.)

Yeah I didn't think actual distance was ever mentioned in the show. Just wondering if it showed up in a book, comic or HG ever said

[Chris0013]

Tirol very far....very far.

[taalismn]

[

(It may have been an attempt at a nod to the title of the original series, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, though admittedly the "Southern Cross" part of the title didn't make sense in the original either... the story being set on a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, which is nowhere near the constellation Crux or the stars that make it up.)

'Southern Cross' seems somehow evocative of crusaders, Joan of Arc, and European knighthood, and the characters are vaguely French, the main character is a warrior woman, and their body armor and insignia resembles medieval armor and heraldry....That's how I figure it.

[glitterboy2098]

all we know is it takes 3 years to get there, leapfrogging using fold drives.

i say leapfrogging, because per HG, starships can only fold so many parsecs at a time before having to drop out.. and i'm pretty sure than Tirol is not only ~600 lightyears away. (and Breetai's ship travel at least that far (2 fold jumps, up to 300-400 light years each) on the way top the factory sat.. and that only took a few days.)


my personal W.A.G. is tirol is roughly on the opposite side of the galaxy, a good 80,000 lightyears away or so.. at ~300lightyears a jump and say, 2 days a jump you'd need 534 days (1.46 years) of actual fold time. the rest would easily be extra jumps (since you wouldn't be able to go straight across), time spent between jumps (recharging, maintenance, resupply, science ops, etc), and perhaps the occasional battle with renegade zents.

[Seto Kaiba]

'Southern Cross' seems somehow evocative of crusaders, Joan of Arc, and European knighthood, and the characters are vaguely French, the main character is a warrior woman, and their body armor and insignia resembles medieval armor and heraldry....That's how I figure it.

Not sure where you're getting that, to be honest... only a handful of the characters have French names, with most of the rest being German, Polish, or British, the main character is a career soldier whose only goal is to get married and retire to be a housewife (not exactly a Joan of Arc), and the armor is modeled on Japanese armor from the Sengoku period, about a century after the Middle Ages in Europe ended.

all we know is it takes 3 years to get there, leapfrogging using fold drives.

Half-correct... that's only true in the RPG, which is non-canon (or, some would say "only canon to itself").

Official Robotech sources have never identified how long it took the UEEF to get to Tirol... which gave rise to an assortment of interesting fan theories, some of which (like the "Five year fold") were shot down by HG.

i say leapfrogging, because per HG, starships can only fold so many parsecs at a time before having to drop out.. and i'm pretty sure than Tirol is not only ~600 lightyears away. (and Breetai's ship travel at least that far (2 fold jumps, up to 300-400 light years each) on the way top the factory sat.. and that only took a few days.)

Per Palladium, not HG... that distance limit is not present in the official stats published by Harmony Gold, which say the ships have "unlimited fold range". No mention is made of any kind of distance limit in canon, and IIRC all of the versions of Sentinels depict them getting to Tirol in a single fold jump. The Masters also allegedly covered the distance from another galaxy to the vicinity of the Sol system in one jump in the Macross Saga (if they came from the nearest other galaxy to Earth - the Canis Major overdensity - that's about ~25,000ly in one jump MINIMUM). This is understandable, given that HG defines the fold drive as being effectively identical to a Star Trek warp drive, not the form of dimensional teleportation fold jumps were in Macross or warp jumps were in Southern Cross (which were a nod to Space Battleship Yamato).

Also, the stats in the Macross Saga sourcebook give Breetai's ship (2E) a maximum single-jump range of 587.1ly... not 300-400.

[Robroy]

all we know is it takes 3 years to get there, leapfrogging using fold drives.

Half-correct... that's only true in the RPG, which is non-canon (or, some would say "only canon to itself").

Official Robotech sources have never identified how long it took the UEEF to get to Tirol... which gave rise to an assortment of interesting fan theories, some of which (like the "Five year fold") were shot down by HG.

i say leapfrogging, because per HG, starships can only fold so many parsecs at a time before having to drop out.. and i'm pretty sure than Tirol is not only ~600 lightyears away. (and Breetai's ship travel at least that far (2 fold jumps, up to 300-400 light years each) on the way top the factory sat.. and that only took a few days.)

Per Palladium, not HG... that distance limit is not present in the official stats published by Harmony Gold, which say the ships have "unlimited fold range". No mention is made of any kind of distance limit in canon, and IIRC all of the versions of Sentinels depict them getting to Tirol in a single fold jump. The Masters also allegedly covered the distance from another galaxy to the vicinity of the Sol system in one jump in the Macross Saga (if they came from the nearest other galaxy to Earth - the Canis Major overdensity - that's about ~25,000ly in one jump MINIMUM). This is understandable, given that HG defines the fold drive as being effectively identical to a Star Trek warp drive, not the form of dimensional teleportation fold jumps were in Macross or warp jumps were in Southern Cross (which were a nod to Space Battleship Yamato).

Also, the stats in the Macross Saga sourcebook give Breetai's ship (2E) a maximum single-jump range of 587.1ly... not 300-400.

I never liked the 3 or 5 year fold, or that the Masters were supposed to be in another galaxy ( had forgot about that ). I prefer to think the UEEF just took that long to find Tirol because they only had a rough idea where it was. I think the Masters didn't trust the Zentreadi so they never let them keep the location in their nav computers. Instead relying on their biorods for internal security while the Zentraedi handled outside threats and conquest. So between exploring and fighting the remaining Zentraedi I could see the UEEF taking awhile.

The difference we see in fold jumps between Macross and TSC could be because of the improvements Louie Nichols made to the fold drives making a jump nearly instantaneous. I swear I saw that somewhere and now I can't find it.

[ShadowLogan]

OK I know it is said that it is in the Southern Cross, but is that actually where it is? Or is it just in that direction?

Or is the distance not mentioned anywhere?

I know its said to be in the Southern Cross constellation in non-canon material, but I don't think its actually part of canon (IIRC). In any case if it was in the constellation it could be any were, including as a directional indicator since not all the celestial objects in direction/constellation make it up. The stars themselves are a chance alignment and doesn't reflect actual distance since individual stars in any constellation will have varying distances and there are some that would not be visible to the naked eye (toss in light pollution and the number can go down farther).

The closest figure might be "another galaxy", IF the TMS-period setting for the Masters was close to their homeworld when they attempted to resurrect Zor (unless they already had his body on-board and had been carrying it around they would have to return to where ever he was buried, which could be Tirol).

(and Breetai's ship travel at least that far (2 fold jumps, up to 300-400 light years each) on the way top the factory sat.. and that only took a few days.)

I do not think Breetai's ship folding to the RFS proves anything about limits, we don't know exactly why the ship defolded when it did by dialogue. The return trip though appears to be one jump though. It took the victors "days" (per dialogue it is "For days the") to redy the RFS. Traveling between mainbase (Dolza) and Earth takes approx. 24hrs, but that was with groups of ships (so they could be closer) and it is hard to see how Earth could have escaped notice by an intergalactic spanning organization if they are only a few hundred light years away.

Official Robotech sources have never identified how long it took the UEEF to get to Tirol

I think you mean to state "canon Robotech", since official Robotech products sanctioned by HG have done that in the past, though they are not part of canon (current).

. which gave rise to an assortment of interesting fan theories, some of which (like the "Five year fold") were shot down by HG.

I do not think the "5-year fold" should be presented as a product of fan theory. It came from an officially sanctioned product, rubber stamp period it might be, which removes it from being a "fan theory".

Also, the stats in the Macross Saga sourcebook give Breetai's ship (2E) a maximum single-jump range of 587.1ly... not 300-400.

Its also important to remember that the Fold Drives differ from ship class to ship class in terms of range, notably absent IINM is how the fold actually takes to cover that distance.
SDF-4 has a 500 parsec (1630ly) jump range
Shimakazie has a 150 parsec (489ly) jump range
Zent. Flagship is 180 parsec (586.8ly) jump range
Zent. Destroyer is 140 parsec (456.4ly) jump range
RM Cityship* has a 200 parsec (652ly) jump range
RM Transport has a 135 parsec (440.1ly) jump range

1 astronomical parsec = 3.26 Light Years is the usual value I see, though there could be a more detailed number

*If we assume the jump range and "recharge" period can all be condensed to 1 day, an RM Cityship could fold between ~21k light years and ~60k Light years, working off the RT.com timeline and Ep placement (and the Masters are concurrent in depiction and not some altered time state) which would be May to July 2013 (since exact dates are lacking...).

[SRoss]

Based on what I've read about the constellation, Tirol could be anywhere between 88 to 370 light years from Earth. I think we'd need to identify it's star to figure the distance.

[Robroy]

Based on what I've read about the constellation, Tirol could be anywhere between 88 to 370 light years from Earth. I think we'd need to identify it's star to figure the distance.

Another reason I am thinking it is in that direction. Way to close for the Master's empire to not find us or for the UEFF to find them IMHO.

[taalismn]

'Southern Cross' seems somehow evocative of crusaders, Joan of Arc, and European knighthood, and the characters are vaguely French, the main character is a warrior woman, and their body armor and insignia resembles medieval armor and heraldry....That's how I figure it.

Not sure where you're getting that, to be honest... only a handful of the characters have French names, with most of the rest being German, Polish, or British, the main character is a career soldier whose only goal is to get married and retire to be a housewife (not exactly a Joan of Arc), and the armor is modeled on Japanese armor from the Sengoku period, about a century after the Middle Ages in Europe ended..

The Japanese have worked with even more vague allusions to things, if only in the titles. Note that I say 'somewhat evocative'. And yes, the armor owes more, physical design-wise to Japanese designs(especially when you see the original development sketches for Southern Cross, what with hovercraft-born Japanese castles), especially with the removable facemasks, but a good number of details seem European.
If you have a better answer to the 'Southern Cross' title connection, though, please share.

[Seto Kaiba]

I never liked the 3 or 5 year fold, or that the Masters were supposed to be in another galaxy ( had forgot about that ). I prefer to think the UEEF just took that long to find Tirol because they only had a rough idea where it was. I think the Masters didn't trust the Zentreadi so they never let them keep the location in their nav computers. Instead relying on their biorods for internal security while the Zentraedi handled outside threats and conquest. So between exploring and fighting the remaining Zentraedi I could see the UEEF taking awhile.

I never cared for it either, mostly because it contradicted almost every other version of the Sentinels arc... but the idea that they didn't know where the homeworld of the Robotech Masters was wasn't part of the original concept either. They knew exactly where it was, and IIRC even what to vaccinate humans for before they arrived. They went directly there in one fold jump, and ended up being attacked right away.

The difference we see in fold jumps between Macross and TSC could be because of the improvements Louie Nichols made to the fold drives making a jump nearly instantaneous. I swear I saw that somewhere and now I can't find it.

I have no idea where you could have read that, because the fold jumps in Shadow Chronicles obviously took a while... and Louie isn't credited with any kind of improvements to fold drives in the RTSC art book.

Official Robotech sources have never identified how long it took the UEEF to get to Tirol

I think you mean to state "canon Robotech", since official Robotech products sanctioned by HG have done that in the past, though they are not part of canon (current).

Harmony Gold disowned them years ago... so those old sources aren't official (anymore). Still, I suppose "canon" or "official" could be used in this case.

If you have a better answer to the 'Southern Cross' title connection, though, please share.

That's the fun part... I can't find any explanation for the title from the show's creators. Crux isn't visible from Japan most of the time, neither of the systems in the story are in or near Crux, and the western angle was explicitly refuted by the show's staff (the character designer apparently wanted to go that way, and the rest of the staff said no). It may just be a case of "it sounds foreign, so it'll sound cool". Japan does that a fair bit when it comes to Western culture, especially religion since Christianity is a tiny minority religion there and seen as rather weird, and thus they sometimes toss references to it without actually meaning anything because it sounds exotic. (Neon Genesis Evangelion is a famous example of this.)

[glitterboy2098]

i wrote my post without a chance to check the values, so yes i did under estimate the flagship's distance.
and as far as the factory sat goes, since each ship has a different value even within the zent ships we have stats for, the factory sat having a longer distance per fold would make some degree of sense, since it presumably has more power to spare for such things. it having greater 'speed' might be a factor of that too.. or it could be that the time experienced inside the fold is somewhat variable. (after all, IIRC, when Rick, lisa, and Company are captured and brought to dolza, and then escape back, the SDF-1 experienced more elapsed time than they did. suggesting a degree of time dilation occuring for at least that trip.)

my estimate of the distance was based more on my memory of the Tristar's fold drive, which is given as 115 parsecs a fold. which at 3.26 lightyears per parsec, means a distance of 374.9 lightyears per fold. since the tristar would be a good example of the state of human ship mounted fold drives in the 2020's when the UEEF left for tirol, i'd say my estimate still is plausible. even if they have zent ships with better distances, or human ships with greater distances, a fleet would move at the pace of its slowest ship.

also note that the Shimakazie class and SDF-4 are in their 2040's form, after refit with the upgraded fold drives developed by (or at least with the extensive help of) louie nichols and refit to the fleet in 2042ish. with drives able to go 3-4x farther per fold, the UEEF would be able to reach earth much faster than 3 years.

without that drive upgrade, which was done around the same time as the shadow device upgrades, the UEEF fleets, liek the ones that carrier lancer and Scott, would have required 2-3 years of travel time to get from tirol to earth.

[Robroy]

I never liked the 3 or 5 year fold, or that the Masters were supposed to be in another galaxy ( had forgot about that ). I prefer to think the UEEF just took that long to find Tirol because they only had a rough idea where it was. I think the Masters didn't trust the Zentreadi so they never let them keep the location in their nav computers. Instead relying on their biorods for internal security while the Zentraedi handled outside threats and conquest. So between exploring and fighting the remaining Zentraedi I could see the UEEF taking awhile.

I never cared for it either, mostly because it contradicted almost every other version of the Sentinels arc... but the idea that they didn't know where the homeworld of the Robotech Masters was wasn't part of the original concept either. They knew exactly where it was, and IIRC even what to vaccinate humans for before they arrived. They went directly there in one fold jump, and ended up being attacked right away.

The difference we see in fold jumps between Macross and TSC could be because of the improvements Louie Nichols made to the fold drives making a jump nearly instantaneous. I swear I saw that somewhere and now I can't find it.

I have no idea where you could have read that, because the fold jumps in Shadow Chronicles obviously took a while... and Louie isn't credited with any kind of improvements to fold drives in the RTSC art book.

Yes Sentinels shows them jumping straight there, but I guess I should have been clearer. As I stated above is how I run it in my games as I think it smoothes out a lot of inconsistencies. As far as vaccinations Rick says to Max something along the lines of "if no one has been to Tirol how do we know what to vaccinate for". Maybe they will fix it when they remake Sentinels.

As for the drive improvements, I admit I maybe miss remembering that. And I said nearly instantaneous, not instantaneous. Reducing a jump from a few weeks to a few minutes is a big improvement. Maybe it was in the novels or a timeline.

[glitterboy2098]

Louie is credited with fold drive and shadow tech related achievements in the prelude comics themselves. if he did not develop them himself in the new canon, he at the very least was one of the main guys that made them work.

Prelude issue 2 page 5 - Louie is instrumental in getting the new fold drives developed and built
Prelude issue 3 page 10-11 Luie has been the main person that let the UEEF fleet be refit with shadow tech in time to be useful

given how Dr.Cochrane talks about Louie in those pages, and his deep understanding of shadow tech systems in the film itself, it seems likely the shadow tech systems are as much due to his design work as Cochrane's, if not more.

[Robroy]

Louie is credited with fold drive and shadow tech related achievements in the prelude comics themselves. if he did not develop them himself in the new canon, he at the very least was one of the main guys that made them work.

Prelude issue 2 page 5 - Louie is instrumental in getting the new fold drives developed and built
Prelude issue 3 page 10-11 Luie has been the main person that let the UEEF fleet be refit with shadow tech in time to be useful

given how Dr.Cochrane talks about Louie in those pages, and his deep understanding of shadow tech systems in the film itself, it seems likely the shadow tech systems are as much due to his design work as Cochrane's, if not more.

At the very least it shows the UEEF fleet getting new drives. Which is the point I was going for in explaining the difference we see in the visual effects between Macross and TSC jumps.

[Seto Kaiba]

Maybe they will fix it when they remake Sentinels.

Ah, yeah... I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that one.

(Or anything Robotech, really...)

As for the drive improvements, I admit I maybe miss remembering that. And I said nearly instantaneous, not instantaneous. Reducing a jump from a few weeks to a few minutes is a big improvement. Maybe it was in the novels or a timeline.

As far as the state of Earth's fold drive technology goes, only one improvement was ever identified in the official Robotech materials.

Specifically... late in the 3rd Robotech War, humanity's grasp of the technology finally reached a level where they were finally able to construct fold drives of their own that performed at least as well as the salvaged alien (Zentradi) fold drives they'd been dependent on up to that point. It's just that the human-built fold drives were more capable and reliable than the iffy secondhand fold drives they'd been forced to use prior to that point. There's nothing said about changes in the way the technology works.

It's possible you're thinking of the depiction of fold jumps in the novels and possibly Waltrip comics, where the time dilation effects of traveling by fold jump are so severe that a second of time for the crew is months or years of time in realspace. (This, itself, is possibly drawn from the Macross OSM, where Misa Hayase noted it was understood that time passed slower during a fold jump while the ship was in super dimension space... with 1 hour of subjective time equalling about 10 days of objective time in realspace. The subsequent Macross works indicated her estimate was wide of the mark by a huge margin due to humanity's inexperience with the technology, and the actual time differential was much smaller.)

At the very least it shows the UEEF fleet getting new drives. Which is the point I was going for in explaining the difference we see in the visual effects between Macross and TSC jumps.

Unfortunately, the only acknowledged improvement is replacing salvaged fold drives with more reliable new ones... it didn't change how the drives work.

The only explanation for the difference in visual effects between the 80's animation and RTSC is that Robotech's "hyperspace fold drive" works differently from the FTL technologies depicted in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross. Robotech's explanation is a classic Star Trek-style warp drive, whereas the Macross subspace fold system and Southern Cross warp drive are forms of folded-space teleportation.

[glitterboy2098]

the problem with the "warp drive" idea is that tAoSC says nothing of the sort, and it requires us to ignore multiple references in all three sagas referring to hyperspace.. including lines by our Omniscient narrator.

all folds in macross, and the 'dimensional warp blast' in ASC, use the bubble effect as well, to various sizes and transparencies. and in macross the inside of the fold is shown as a glowing background. same as the shadow chronicles fold. the shadow chronicles version just has better graphics.

[Seto Kaiba]

the problem with the "warp drive" idea is that tAoSC says nothing of the sort, and it requires us to ignore multiple references in all three sagas referring to hyperspace.. including lines by our Omniscient narrator.

So, a couple problems with your claim here.

The first is that it's completely false... which is kind of a big problem on its own. The description in The Art of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles is that of a classic Star Trek-style warp drive (or Alcubierre drive, if you fancy the real-world theoretical equivalent). They don't describe the ship as traveling through hyperspace or subspace or any kind of alternate dimension... it's described as a system that distorts the space-time continuum to create a bubble of space around the ship and then move that bubble at faster-than-light speeds. There's even a diagram screencapped from the movie that shows the contraction of space in front of the ship and its expansion behind it, the exact way a warp drive moves the warp bubble. Literally the only difference between this and the Star Trek warp drive is they say "hyperspace" instead of "subspace". They even say it can be used to shield against gravitational forces, just like a Star Trek warp drive's subspace field... which implies that it's using a negative mass effect to produce that warping of the space-time continuum.

The second is that it doesn't require us to ignore the references to hyperspace because - hey - it's just a "hyperspace field" instead of a "subspace field", and we very visibly see in Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles that the ships are not leaving realspace when they activate their fold drives. They even do the starlines thing like a warp drive, and we see the starlines slow down into fixed stars when the Icarus decelerates.

The third is that the above is the ONLY official explanation and diagram of how a fold drive works... and, like it or not, it's also the only one from a Harmony Gold-original Robotech work, and that means it's the one that reflects the actual intent of Robotech's creators as to how a fold drive works.



(I'm not sure why the idea that they'd copy Star Trek is so surprising... Janice Em is a shameless knockoff of Commander Data (and is even voiced by a Star Trek actress), and the RTSC version of Louie Nichols is an equally blatant copy of Geordi LaForge right down to always wearing special eyewear that compensates for a vision handicap by conferring superhuman sensory abilities (helpfully noted right on his concept art on pages 64 and 65.)

[Robroy]

It's possible you're thinking of the depiction of fold jumps in the novels and possibly Waltrip comics, where the time dilation effects of traveling by fold jump are so severe that a second of time for the crew is months or years of time in realspace. (This, itself, is possibly drawn from the Macross OSM, where Misa Hayase noted it was understood that time passed slower during a fold jump while the ship was in super dimension space... with 1 hour of subjective time equalling about 10 days of objective time in realspace. The subsequent Macross works indicated her estimate was wide of the mark by a huge margin due to humanity's inexperience with the technology, and the actual time differential was much smaller.)

Yeah I remember Misa talk about the time difference. And in the 2nd Robotech war we see ships from deep space take some time to get to earth.

We always played it as about 1 hour in hyperspace to 1 week real time. Was it ever said or was it just one of those speed of plot things.

[ShadowLogan]

(This, itself, is possibly drawn from the Macross OSM, where Misa Hayase noted it was understood that time passed slower during a fold jump while the ship was in super dimension space... with 1 hour of subjective time equalling about 10 days of objective time in realspace. The subsequent Macross works indicated her estimate was wide of the mark by a huge margin due to humanity's inexperience with the technology, and the actual time differential was much smaller.)

I don't have the quotes from "First Contact" and "The Big Escape" episodes on file, and I forget the specific values, but RT does have Lisa Hayes (Misa) making a similar statement in "First Contact" and their subjective time in "The Big Escape" to establish they returned to Earth space (or one big coincidence).

The Novels, not the Series itself, stated 1day subjective is 14 days real-time equivalent for time dilation. The series kept the 1 day subjective aspect, but I don't recall the real time equivalent.

the problem with the "warp drive" idea is that tAoSC says nothing of the sort, and it requires us to ignore multiple references in all three sagas referring to hyperspace.. including lines by our Omniscient narrator.

I don't think HG is going to come right out and say "its a warp drive" in name, but they can certainly take the view that is similar to how it operates even if it isn't the same name since they are trapped using "space fold" and "hyperspace" terms from the dialogue (unless they want to invent another FTL system name). "Warp" and "Fold" could be taken as synonymous, granted Star Trek has a Space Fold system (early season of Voyager) of its own.

Warp Drive, in Star Trek, does creates a non-visible bubble effect that is referenced in dialogue more than a few times in episodes IINM. That doesn't mean that RT has to do the same and can't do their own twist on the concept (partly owing to the previous depictions, but also to give it unique spins to avoid legal troubles).

[Seto Kaiba]

Yeah I remember Misa talk about the time difference. And in the 2nd Robotech war we see ships from deep space take some time to get to earth.

We always played it as about 1 hour in hyperspace to 1 week real time. Was it ever said or was it just one of those speed of plot things.

It's been a while, but I don't recall the Robotech version of that scene giving any specific guidance as to the differential between subjective and objective time during a fold jump. The explanation in AotSC doesn't make any mention of time passing more slowly aboard the folding ship, which would be more consistent with the notion of it being a ST-style warp drive... no time dilation because the ship isn't leaving the space-time continuum or actually moving at all. The ship experiences no relativistic effects because, like a figurine inside a snowglobe, its velocity relative to the bubble containing it is zero and the bubble itself is what's moving. The biggest problem with Robotech's fold drives is we have no frame of reference for distances between destinations and no information about the relative speed of a folding ship, so we can't even concoct an estimated distance to Tirol by roundabout means.

Before I found and translated the explanation that Misa was overestimating due to humanity's inexperience with traveling by space fold, I was playing the 1:240 time differential dead straight... where every minute spent in super dimension space during a fold jump was equal to four hours in realspace. For my homebrew main timeline Macross games, I've had to get a bit more creative, where the time difference is trivial unless you encounter dimensional faults (which can add days to a fold jump that would otherwise have been a matter of minutes).

I don't think HG is going to come right out and say "its a warp drive" in name, but they can certainly take the view that is similar to how it operates even if it isn't the same name since they are trapped using "space fold" and "hyperspace" terms from the dialogue (unless they want to invent another FTL system name). "Warp" and "Fold" could be taken as synonymous, granted Star Trek has a Space Fold system (early season of Voyager) of its own.

It's worth remembering that the word "warp" is associated with fold drives in the Masters Saga.

IIRC, Star Trek's equivalent technology to a Macross-style fold system was called a "coaxial warp drive".

[glitterboy2098]

if it was going to be a trek style warp, HG would have been more specific about how it works, rather than giving the non-answer they did in the art of shadow chronicles.


Star wars hyperdrives also generate a (non visible) bubble effect oper SW canon (old and new), and they use actual hyperspace. their visuals are also much closer in terms of the ship streaking away suddenly when viewed from the outside and the streaking stars view from inside FTL, so if your going to insist on using visuals from the show to connect it to some other franchise, Star Wars is a much better comparison all around. given the number of other star wars references/homages in Robotech already ("proton torpeodes", the 15ths having to manuever down a trench to shoot up an exhuast port, the garbage masher scene in the 15ths infiltration, the RotJ deathstar callbacks with scott flying through the mountain hive, etc..) that HG actually doubled down on the existing SW references in the original material by adding additional dialog or sound effects to make it more obvious, not to mention their adding lots of new SW homages to shadow chronicles, it seems much more probable that the creative, writing, and animation staff were thinking "Star Wars" rather than "Star Trek"

[Seto Kaiba]

if it was going to be a trek style warp, HG would have been more specific about how it works, rather than giving the non-answer they did in the art of shadow chronicles.

The explanation in AotSC and the diagram provided are, in fact, quite clear to anyone familiar with the principles involved... but I suppose it could fly over the heads of those who don't delve into the details of theoretical propulsion systems.

Star wars hyperdrives also generate a (non visible) bubble effect oper SW canon (old and new), [...]

A minimum of fact-checking revealed this statement to be both inaccurate and misleading.

No "bubble effect" is mentioned in Star Wars official canon resources, and the "bubble effect" in question in the decanonized Legends materials was a form of shielding protecting the ship against harmful radiation and gravitational forces during a jump not part of the propulsive effect itself.

their visuals are also much closer in terms of the ship streaking away suddenly when viewed from the outside and the streaking stars view from inside FTL, so if your going to insist on using visuals from the show to connect it to some other franchise, Star Wars is a much better comparison all around.

Another quick fact-check confirmed you're misattributing the Star Wars visuals for jumping to lightspeed to jumping to hyperspace. The former is almost an identical visual effect to the one used for going to warp in Star Trek.

(Amusingly, your other references are predominantly from the Masters Saga, which is also where the dialog connecting "warp" to fold drives comes from... so your claim would seem rather baseless.)

[tobefrnk]

Based on what I've read about the constellation, Tirol could be anywhere between 88 to 370 light years from Earth. I think we'd need to identify it's star to figure the distance.

Well, a number that exists for a planet in the RPG is one for Karbarra. The much maligned UEEF Marines book puts Karbarra only 80 light years from Earth. A distance that seems WAY to small in my opinion.

[Peacebringer]

It's actually really close to Cybertron.

[keir451]

There doesn't seem to be any real info stating the actual distance to Tirol, but in the novels it is mentioned that towards the end of the Sentinels, Lang realizes that there was "something" wrong with the fold drives so that instead of the REF arriving at Tirol nearly immediately they were in transit for 5 yrs.
--------------------

The first group to be sent back to Earth was Maj. Carpenter who left Tirol in 2027 (Earthtime) he arrives in 2031 just after the Masters arrive.

The next group to leave for Earth was Col. Wolff in 2028, this group most likely contains Lancer and Lunk, he arrives at Earth in 2032 after the end of the 2nd Robotech War and sets up an anti-Invid underground (according to the novels) Dana Sterling and the remnants of the 15th ATAC commandeer his ship and head back to Tirol.

Then in 2032 Scott and the Mars Attack Group leave Tirol for Earth with upgrade Fold Drives reducing the time of voyage to 2 yrs.

Next in 2033 the Regis arrives and this begins the Invid occupation of Earth.
*Also in 2033, Dana Sterling, Bowie, Sean, Angelo, Musica, Allegra and "some of the masters clones" arrive at Tirol.
Lang finally figures out how to make the fold drives work properly, allowing for "instantaneous fold".

2034 (Earth time) Scott and the Mars Attack Group arrive and get trashed.

2035 Jupiter Attack Group arrives.
*Funny thing that the trip TO Earth took 4 yrs for Wolff, but only 1 yr for Dana, the novels credit Louie with providing some important info that helps Lang finish his new fold drives.
(information provided from Jack McKinney's "Rubicon")
------------------------------------------------------
So, the best we've got as far as TIME goes is either 5 yrs, 4 yrs, 1 yr, or "instaneous". but no actual distance. Though I thought I recalled a reference that said Tirol was located in the constellation of the Southern Cross (thus how the army got its name). The constellation is about 8,800 LY away.

[Trav13369]

The Valivarre system, home of Fantoma and the moon of Tirol, IS the Gamma Crux system, the lowest point of the Southern Cross constellation. Therefore, 88 LY from Earth, coreward.

[Jockitch74]

I don't remember where I got this ( its been years) but I remember reading it was 1,812 parsecs from Earth to Tirol. I could be wrong.

[Seto Kaiba]

The Valivarre system, home of Fantoma and the moon of Tirol, IS the Gamma Crux system, the lowest point of the Southern Cross constellation. Therefore, 88 LY from Earth, coreward.

Source?

I don't believe any official Robotech media have ever identified where the Robotech Masters homeworld is relative to Earth.

I don't remember where I got this ( its been years) but I remember reading it was 1,812 parsecs from Earth to Tirol. I could be wrong.

That was the figure cited in the Unofficial Robotech Reference Guide's fan fiction history of Tirol, so I'm guessing you probably got it from there?

[Peacebringer]

The Valivarre system, home of Fantoma and the moon of Tirol, IS the Gamma Crux system, the lowest point of the Southern Cross constellation. Therefore, 88 LY from Earth, coreward.

That's real bad-news for Tirol. Gacrux is a red-giant star that's going off the main-sequence. Any planet in the habitable-zone, would have had it's water boiled off millions of years ago. If Tirol was not in the HZ and it moved, thawing it out, Tirol would have probably been terraformed. But this is a moot-point. Gamma Crux may have been a B-class star, which means it's dies too fast to form planets. Maybe Gacrux is where the worm-hole is to get there.

Another problem with Tirol is that it's a moon, which means it's tidally-locked. To keep an atmosphere and to protect it from Fantoma's radiation-belts, Tirol needs a strong magnetic-field, that means a strong-rotation or close-orbit.

[Jockitch74]

The Valivarre system, home of Fantoma and the moon of Tirol, IS the Gamma Crux system, the lowest point of the Southern Cross constellation. Therefore, 88 LY from Earth, coreward.

Source?

I don't believe any official Robotech media have ever identified where the Robotech Masters homeworld is relative to Earth.

I don't remember where I got this ( its been years) but I remember reading it was 1,812 parsecs from Earth to Tirol. I could be wrong.

That was the figure cited in the Unofficial Robotech Reference Guide's fan fiction history of Tirol, so I'm guessing you probably got it from there?

Probably

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

Traveling between mainbase (Dolza) and Earth takes approx. 24hrs

Nope, 10 days is the threshold...

Eps. #11 First Contact
THE NARRATOR: And as her thoughts turn to Rick, at that very moment in some distant part of the galaxy three weary Earthlings try to make the best of a serious situation.

BEN: Sure would like to know where these bruisers are taking us.

RICK: If you wanna know the truth, I'm not sure I'm so anxious to find out.

LISA: Wow, its been almost 10 Earth days since we began this fold operation. I bet a lot has happened in Macross City.

BEN: That long?

RICK: What?

LISA: That long. Time almost seems to stand still during fold operations.

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

About FTL in Robotech...

Episode #1 Boobytrap
THE NARRATOR: Blasting though a warp fold in deep space, a gigantic alien spaceship enters Earth's solar system in pursuit of the damaged Robotech vessel which has eluded capture by slipping through the time-space continuum.

Episode #30 Viva Miriya
THE NARRATOR: For days the combined efforts of Breetai's Earth forces and the surrendered Zentraedi survivors have utilzied all of the existing resources to prepare the massive Robotech Factory for its voyage through hyperspace. Finally, all is ready.

ZENTRAEDI SOLDIER: Lord Breetai, all Fold systems are now operational.

BREETAI: Begin furnace buildup.

ZENTRAEDI SOLDIER: Yes sir.

CLAUDIA GRANT: Computations for hyperspace reactions are complete Commander.

BREETAI: Begin fold!

Episode #31 Khyron's Revenge
SCIENCE MASTER 1: Alright, but one more thing. Why don't we check the Matrix figures on the remaining Protoculture?

ROBOTECH MASTER 2: But why? They've been rechecked. We don't even have enough left to make the hyperspace jump to Earth's solar system.

SCIENCE MASTER 2: If that's correct, then we have no choice but to proceed with your new plan.

ROBOTECH MASTER 1: So then, we begin the trip under impulse power and rely on the cell tissue to complete our mission.

Episode #38 False Start
BILL MORRISON: This is a Special Bulletin from Channel 3, your Macross Broadcasting Station. Good evening, I'm Bill Morrison, with this late breaking story. Just in from United Earth Command Headquarters, United Earth Government revealed today that at 11PM last night a huge spacecraft of unknown origin was detected as it entered our quadrant from hyperspace. After tampering with, and possibly destroying one of our communications satellites, it has settled into a stationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above our planet. All troops have been mobilized and put on Red Alert.

Eps. #42 Danger Zone
LOUIE: I've scanned the entire for a central power source. As you can see, there is no sign of one anywhere, but I found a bio-magnetic induction network. It seems to be creating a perpetual bio-magnetic cycle by drawing the Protoculture molecules together and then forcing them apart.

LOUIE: "For starters, I deduce that his ship is not powered by an engine as we know it."

DANA: "But how does the thing get from place to place without an engine."

LOUIE: "It apparently folds space by twisting imposing forces."

DANA: "Space folding, huh? So if you upset the hyper balance, you've got yourself an unstable ship."

Episode #47 Outsiders
THE NARRATOR: At that very moment, a battlefortress from SDF-3 Pioneer Mission is approaching the Robotech Masters ship after defolding from hyperspace.

Episode #53 The Hunters
ROLF: There may be a possibility, Colonel, that we can create a phenomenon known as "the molecular vacuum".

GREEN: I've heard of that - That's where space within a radius of two kilometers can be warped.

ROLF: Yes and what happens to non-orbital objects in that space?

GREEN: They'd almost certainly break up into atoms and be sucked into a small black hole on a one-way trip into another
dimension. But no!

ROLF: Yes. Attention all ships of Defense Force - Lead all bioroids within two kilometers of us. Get them as close as you can before 23 hundred hours standard Earth time. We'll try to blast them into the after world forever with the molecular vacuum.

GREEN: Oh, wait. Even if we do blast the enemy into the black hole we might be sucked in right along with them - We can't jeopardize the lives of our crew members like that.
...................
THE NARRATOR: With the blasting of the Robotech Masters into hyperspace, and the atmosphere back on Earth tense and expectant, the situation relaxes, at least for now.
...................
DANA: Gee, Bowie. Don't be so happy. They were only blasted into another dimension. Fortunately they got back okay.

Episode #54 Mind Games
THE NARRATOR: The Earth forces were enhanced by reinforcements from hyperspace, responding to a mayday from the original attack on Space Station Liberty. With the Southern Cross forces in tatters and the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance, an important rendezvous is called at the newly armoured Moonbase ALuCE

Episode #84 Dark Finale
THE NARRATOR: Emerging from the spacefolding procedure that brought them to the dark side of the Moon, the ships of Admiral Rick Hunter's Expeditionary Force prepare for the final assault on the Invid stronghold known as Reflex Point.

REINHARDT: Any sign of Admiral Hunter yet?

SPARKS: No sir, no indication at all. The SDF-3 never materialized from hyperspace from that last jump.

Spacefolding is NOT the same as Warp from Star Trek. Its clearly involving travel to/through another dimension (either via wormhole or literally breaking through the barriers of reality).

And one other little thing...

Episode #51 Clone Chamber
ROCHELLE: That's the end of the message. We received this transmission from the moon 24 hours ago.

SEWARD: That's the first transmission from the moon that's gotten through the enemy's sub-space interference--we, should be happy about that, I suppose. Hmm.

Subspace, being akin to Hyperspace. As in NOT Real Space. Spacefolding in Robotech is NOT Star Trek-style warp and people claiming otherwise aren't paying attention to what is established in the Tv series. I don't care what Tommy Yune wrote in AotSC as its irrelevant/not canon. Ships in Robotech may accelerate until they enter Hyperspace, but that is not the same thing as Star Trek-style Warp.

[xunk16]

Subspace, being akin to Hyperspace. As in NOT Real Space. Spacefolding in Robotech is NOT Star Trek-style warp and people claiming otherwise aren't paying attention to what is established in the Tv series. I don't care what Tommy Yune wrote in AotSC as its irrelevant/not canon. Ships in Robotech may accelerate until they enter Hyperspace, but that is not the same thing as Star Trek-style Warp.

With the alcubierre bubble being used much more like a Geller field (40k) in that occurrence, than as a propulsion shield. Probably insuring that what is inside the ship is not dimensionally shifted out of a living state. Which could take into account the weird time dilation phenomena that was around the SDF-1 when it crash landed on earth. (Old comics and novels.)

[camk4evr]

About FTL in Robotech...


Subspace, being akin to Hyperspace. As in NOT Real Space. Spacefolding in Robotech is NOT Star Trek-style warp and people claiming otherwise aren't paying attention to what is established in the Tv series. I don't care what Tommy Yune wrote in AotSC as its irrelevant/not canon. Ships in Robotech may accelerate until they enter Hyperspace, but that is not the same thing as Star Trek-style Warp.

Actually it is as that's how it's depicted in the Shadow Chronicles movie.

[Seto Kaiba]

One important detail that's always worth remembering in topics like this one is that Robotech's setting and story tend to be frustratingly vague and inconsistent as a result of hastily adapting three unrelated shows with little-to-nothing in the way of an actual plan. The aspects of the plot where the adaptation intersected with the few original concepts that weren't part of the original stories tend to be worst off of all, since they were essentially made up on the fly. Tirol didn't exist in any of the three original shows, so its location is never really pinned down beyond "far far away"[sup]1[/sup], with any efforts to be more specific being wildly inconsistent even within mere minutes of each other.[sup]2[/sup] In the original Southern Cross's story, the Zor were returning to their home world of Glorie orbiting Epsilon Eridani from Phi Eridani, where they had waited out the nuclear winter caused by their civilization's collapse. Phi Eridani's even closer, just 154 light years from Earth.

Part of the reason for the inconsistent depiction of FTL in the Robotech series is that the original shows had rather different takes on the idea. Macross's setting used a form of teleportation via folding higher-dimensional spacetime in a manner vaguely reminiscent of Dune's Holtzman drives. Southern Cross's setting used a form of warp drive based on the one in the Space Battleship Yamato series, which used tachyon propulsion to travel in a 3.5th/4th dimensional straight line between two points when they come into temporary alignment in higher dimensions. The original Robotech setting explanation for its "Space fold" in Robotech Art 1 was essentially the same as the Macross version even though the depiction in the Masters Saga was not in line with it. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles retconned it into being a Star Trek-esque warp drive, presumably a change dictated by Harmony Gold's legal counsel to avoid provoking legal action from Macross's owners.

With the alcubierre bubble being used much more like a Geller field (40k) in that occurrence, than as a propulsion shield. Probably insuring that what is inside the ship is not dimensionally shifted out of a living state. Which could take into account the weird time dilation phenomena that was around the SDF-1 when it crash landed on earth. (Old comics and novels.)

The "bubble" thing only really shows up once in the Robotech once, and that's during abnormal operation of the SDF-1's fold system.

In the original Macross, it was because the booby trap screwed up the fold system causing it to create a fold effect much larger than it was supposed to be... and that appears to still be true for the Robotech version. Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles reworked the idea as a Star Trek-style warp field.



1. "Far far away" is literally how the narrator refers to it.
2. For instance, in Robotech II: the Sentinels, Leonard claims the Masters homeworld is "on the other side of the galaxy" while the narrator claims only that it's "far far away". About ten minutes later, the narrator refers to it as "the star system of the southern cross", apparently forgetting that Crux is a constellation not a star system and that the stars that make up the constellation proper are between 88 and 353 light years away... ~75,000 light years or so short of "the other side of the galaxy".

[xunk16]

The "bubble" thing only really shows up once in the Robotech once, and that's during abnormal operation of the SDF-1's fold system.

So... let's not count End of the Circle here. (Which is fuzzy in my memory and into which the bubble part was less direct.) Once for Macross Island, yes... Then once for taking some Master Ships on the other side, and coming back without them or shield for a brief amount of time. (Master Saga) Also the way Minmei piggy back the fold, outside of the hull, at the beginning of the sentinels. And like even you sometime point out, still a bubble on the screens in Shadow Chronicles. Now we might not always SEE the bubble, but being a more than four-dimensional object, maybe we shouldn't be able to.
In any case, there IS a bubble that can be generally assumed to take stuff around the ship with it.

Now we might theorize all we want on how that bubble works. And maybe there is some dimensionally still perceptible light when a folded ship goes from point A to point B. Or when the bubble is shined upon by some hyperspace light. But the fact that there was a bubble don't seem to me like a single occurrence. And taking the old robotech Graphic Novel prequel into account, "dimensional shifts" does seems to be the key words here. Especially since a broke bubble, without a coherent stop of the fold system, can provoke an area of lingering dimensional turbulence. Or localized time dilation.

The tachyon propulsion between two aligned points is also kept. Not in the protection from hyperspace sense, nor keeping the coherence of the ship. BUT, Robotech often mentions "fold calculations", or "fold calculations errors". Some of which seems widely off by the material plane's standards. So there is the fold bubble, but like the Alcubierre, that doesn't tell us how the ship then accelerates.
But we also know that the fold drives can push, and the way they push might also be dimensionally shifted, explaining the need for the protective bubble itself.

Coincidentally, this kind of complicated dimensional warping can also explain the widely inaccurate measurement of distances between earth and Tirol. Or the varying travel time and numbers of jump. A ship basically has to calculate the most advantageous route at any given time, and that might ask for a less than optimal angle of approach. You then exit long before your destination, and jump back with the next opportunity. Simple. And all supported by the old novels and comics. Including the cosmic horrors coming from hyperspace and subspace. The One-Long-Jump theory still remains possible, optimal even, but might not happen twice a century.

Or in other words, Tirol is "as-far-as-the-Gm/writer-Damn-Like-That-day". And without telling Robotech as incoherent.
Though the RNU might have been better to precise "better fold computer calculations", and not necessarily just "better fold engines".
But that could be scientific limitations on the part of mankind. Our banana brains aren't very good with dimensional stuff.

However, I do appreciate you differentiating the different sources in each of their respective series. That does explain why the final product ends up as being more complex than each of these propositions, while simultaneously correcting the vagueness of one another.

[Seto Kaiba]

So... let's not count End of the Circle here.

As you know, I'm not really inclined to consider materials that HG has disowned from the setting... so I'll say no more of that.

Once for Macross Island, yes... Then once for taking some Master Ships on the other side, and coming back without them or shield for a brief amount of time. (Master Saga) Also the way Minmei piggy back the fold, outside of the hull, at the beginning of the sentinels. And like even you sometime point out, still a bubble on the screens in Shadow Chronicles. Now we might not always SEE the bubble, but being a more than four-dimensional object, maybe we shouldn't be able to.
In any case, there IS a bubble that can be generally assumed to take stuff around the ship with it.

All in all, there's really only the one example of a fold "bubble" in the Robotech TV series and that's the critical failure of the SDF-1's fold system that sucked an entire island into space.

In normal operation, both the fold effect from Macross and the warp effect in Southern Cross are shown to hug the outer hull of the ship closely. Macross's setting does establish that a fold system can expand the fold effect to a wider area than just the perimeter of the ship it's installed on, but that it's not normally done because it increases the already extreme energy requirement to fold space in proportion to the volume of the area to be folded. Southern Cross briefly weaponizes one of the weaknesses in Yamato-style warp drive tech. A warp can only be done safely at specific times when the ship's position and intended destination are aligned in 4th dimensional space, and screwing it up by accident or design can have unpleasant results like getting stuck in 3.5th/4th dimensional space or messing up the spacetime around the warping ship. General Emerson deliberately activates his ship's warp drive at the wrong time for his destination, creating a dimensional fault outside the warp effect that shreds everything it comes in contact with.

It wasn't until Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles that the spherical "fold bubble" became a normal part of the drive's operation, when it became a Star Trek-style warp drive and the bubble the setting-specific stand-in for the subspace bubble the warp field acts on to propel the ship and prevent relativistic time dilation.

Not in the protection from hyperspace sense, nor keeping the coherence of the ship. BUT, Robotech often mentions "fold calculations", or "fold calculations errors". Some of which seems widely off by the material plane's standards.

That's carried over from the original shows. Fold jumps in Macross needed to be carefully calculated in order to use gravity manipulation to make the relative higher-dimensional coordinates of two points in space coterminous using gravity manipulation, and to assess the amount of energy needed to do so in order to avoid being unable to exit the higher-dimensional space after entering it. For the Yamato-style warp drives of Southern Cross, warps needed to be carefully computed to determine the specific points in space and time from which a warp drive activation would result in the warp carrying the ship to its intended destination safely.

Presumably the reason the RTSC version needs to calculate is that they lack the FTL sensors that Star Trek ships have, rendering the ship effectively blind while the drive is propelling the ship at faster-than-light speeds. The Icarus, for instance, seems to be unable to detect the black hole it was approaching until it collapses its fold bubble. Likewise, it also later misses the fact that there are two enemy ships chasing it on its return flight.

So there is the fold bubble, but like the Alcubierre, that doesn't tell us how the ship then accelerates.
But we also know that the fold drives can push, and the way they push might also be dimensionally shifted, explaining the need for the protective bubble itself.

... not sure where you're getting that, really.

Robotech - or at least Shadow Chronicles - treats dimensional shifting as something new and bizarre and poorly understood. RTSC's "fold bubble" seems to be the equivalent of the subspace field in Star Trek that establishes a pocket of normal space around the ship that the warp field pushes through space at faster-than-light speeds.

Macross's fold technology, yeah, entails the folding ship using gravity manipulation to compact the relative higher-dimensional coordinates of its position and intended destination to a single point and then push itself into, then out of, that higher dimensional spacetime. There's not really a protective bubble involved. It's not a shield, it's just the boundary of the volume of realspace that's being exchanged for an equivalent volume of realspace at the destination.

Southern Cross's Yamato warp tech not so much... the state of the Southern Cross Army's warp tech isn't discussed in enough detail to know if, as in Yamato, they lack the warp shield that prevents the ship from being frozen in time for the duration of the warp. (It would make sense if they did lack it, given that in that series the Zor originate from a warp accident that resulted in a colony ship irreversibly time traveling thousands of years into the past.)

Coincidentally, this kind of complicated dimensional warping can also explain the widely inaccurate measurement of distances between earth and Tirol. Or the varying travel time and numbers of jump. A ship basically has to calculate the most advantageous route at any given time, and that might ask for a less than optimal angle of approach.

It would explain travel times, yes... but not distances.

Distances in dialog are discussed in absolute terms, the distance separating two places in normal space. The distance between two fixed points is an absolute, the route you take... not s'much.

Or in other words, Tirol is "as-far-as-the-Gm/writer-Damn-Like-That-day". And without telling Robotech as incoherent.

It's really more a case of the writers just never bothering to establish how far away Tirol - or anywhere else - is in any specific terms. It could be as close as 88 light years, or all the way on the other side of the galaxy. Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie-Roll pop, the world may never know.

In conjunction with that, it's also partly because the writers never bother to establish in any context how far a folding ship can travel over a specific amount of time. Much like the hyperdrives in Star Wars, Robotech's space folds are very much "speed of plot" stardrives.

Macross's fold technology is a little bit clearer on that front but not much since it's established that the actual time spend on a fold jump varies depending on many factors like the precision of the calculations, the quality and precision of the fold system, local gravitational fields, dimensional faults, and so on, all of which impact the margin of temporal error in the jump. The not-so-popular RT fan theory of the "five year fold" is build on this. It's variously indicated in Macross that short-ranged folds are virtually instantaneous in ideal conditions but that you can lose massive chunks of time (days, if not weeks) by folding through dimensional faults.

If Southern Cross's warp drive technology is copying Yamato as closely as it appears to, a properly executed warp jump is virtually instantaneous over any distance up to its maximum range.

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

Except the bubble is clearly evident in the Tristar's Orbital Warp Blast in episode #53 The Hunters