Awesome / Macross II

• Only mentioned but not seen: in 2082, ten years before the series, a Zentraedi Main Fleet came looking for trouble... And the UN Spacy, using the Minmay Attack and their new generation of ships and Valkyries, annihilated it, so decisively the UN Spacy cannot take the Zentraedi seriously anymore.
• In the first episode it was a plot point that the UN Spacy had grown too reliant on the Minmay Attack. In episode 5 the Marduk launch a full blown offensive... And it turns out that, just in case, the UN Spacy had actually prepared to take on a Zentraedi Main Fleet (or equivalent) without the Minmay Attack: enter the Macross Cannon ships, Earth-made ships that use four Zentraedi flagships and relative main cannons as their main weapons. There's four of them (with two others held in reserve). They single-handedly cause over 60% losses to the Marduk first wave with a single salvo.
  • The Macross Cannons are destroyed before they can fire again, but what the Marduk do to achieve that underscores their immense power: they defold a second wave behind the Macross Cannons right after their salvo, and as soon as they see the Spacy is actually succeeding at protecting the Cannons as they recharge they have their Zentraedi launch a fleet-wide kamikaze attack and fire all guns at the Spacy.
  • During the final battle the UN armed forces have been decimated, the Macross herself has been destroyed, and while Ishtar's song is causing Ingues to have a Villainous Breakdown the result is him blowing up what Marduk ships are stopping to obey without them daring to fight back... Then the last two Macross Cannons join the frame and make his Planet Spaceship shake from the impact. While it doesn't cause much damage, the sheer psychological impact of showing Ingues is vulnerable prompts the Marduk and their Zentraedi to defend themselves and blow him up.