[Tak]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Millions of ships? Is it really that many?

Spoiler for End of SDF Macross:

I thought that only a small fraction of Britai's fleet survived, and there'd be nowhere near a million ships; maybe a few thousand, tops.

Spoiler for End of SDF Macross:

Baldoza's fleet consisted of some 4 ~ 5 million vessels, but through Exsedol's strategy, they went against the 'head of the snake' and destroyed Baldoza's fortress while leaving millions of ships intact. Although many ships splintered from UN SPACY (those are your rogue elements), most converted.

However, the UN SPACY can never spare more than a few hundreds or thousands of ships each time to accompany colonial fleets, because there were still thousands of million-ship fleets out there that possessed a serious threat to humanity (and Earth). As I stated earlier, based on official materials (but not shown on TV) between Space War I and Frontier, UN SPACY, under the leadership of Vrlitwhai, fought at least twice against two such fleets head on. Therefore, even if there weren't 'MILLIONS' of Zentradi vessels employed by the UN SPACY, the number would have been awfully close.

Moreover, it is worthy of note that the VF-4 Lightening III did not start mass production until well into the 2030s, even though prototypes accompanied the Megaroad I, as no encounter with other Zent elements existed before that.

Another example would be Macross 7 (as silly as it was), the strategy in pacifying Chlore's fleet had been going against the leader, but leaving everyone else alone.

Although near the end of the original MACROSS, already a reluctance in the destruction of Zentradi facilities and/or ships existed. I'd imagine such is due to economic and strategic necessities

- Tak