The next 'species' to come could therefore come from outside the galaxy,just because there's a lack of A.I. development for the Protoculture doesn't mean other species/galaxies have the same setup.
Unlike the HAL-like A.I. from Macross Plus, these might have been left dormant, or perhaps were powered down traveling between galaxies. They could have rebelled against their creators and be on the run (like the Reapers from Mass Effect) be carrying out their creators' last orders to defend territory, or perhaps continue terraforming worlds in advance of colonization. If their creators have a radically different biology (higher temperature, silicon-based, methane breathers, etc.) then some of their work might have been undone by humans trying to create habitable worlds; we've have environmentalist themes here, which Kawamori is fond of.
One of the members of the love triangle might be a Vocaloid-like Gynoid. Seeing the developments in robotics for the Valkyries it's surprising it hasn't filtered down to human-scale bipeds and multipeds. Perhaps one of them is more 'lifelike' because design elements from these Ancient A.I.s have been incorporated, perhaps without her knowledge.
Combining mechs might show up here (with elements from Aquarion?), as with the exception of FAST Packs, all the mechs in the Macross Universe transform only. It may be that whilst A.I. development is still slow or restricted (out of concern/fear), public use of 'partner' A.I.s for military/civilian purpose would be more acceptable, as it gives them room to learn whilst leaving humans with the final say.
Other side stories here could be someone trying to reverse engineer these Ancient A.I.s to create better weaponry (villains could be a munitions/defense contractor, anti-PMC), or perhaps archaeological dig sites being attacked by unknown foes.
- Well, Grace O'Connor was almost completely robotic since she turned herself into a cyborg. So that's a start.
- Macross Delta is out and no AI or Gynoids in sight. In fact, everyone in the main love triangle is organix.
The real canonical history is the original planned 48-episode series that was never made due to a sponsor dropping out at the last minute. Oh, and there were far more than 56,000 human survivors of the Zentraedi Planet Glassing Attack (patent pending). Either that, or the majority of the huge numbers of surviving Zentraedi could completely pass for human after becoming miclones, without the pointy ears or odd skin tone.
- Turns out there was a moon colony the whole time. Since the construction of the Megaroad-01 was started on the moon in 2003, the colony could potentially have had millions of inhabitants.
- To add fuel to the fire for this theory, Shoji Kawamori stated that a Macross production is just one interpretation of how things happened, so SDF Macross is Interpretation A of Space War I while DYRL is Interpretation B of Space War I, with the real Space War I being a combination of both interpretations.
- An illustration of this is even put in Macross Delta, when one of the members of Walkure mentions there was also a series, The Lynn Minmay Files.
- Jossed, surprisingly, by Macross Delta, where they mention a series based around Lynn Minmay, The Lynn Minmay Files. Claudia likely was brought in to narrate because Minmay herself was busy with her career. It also explains how the writers of the series know about the incident where Hikaru and Minmay were trapped, which ONLY Minmay herself would be able to recall.
- Given the vast expansion of the setting we see in Macross Delta, the Protoculture would probably be going against a giant alliance of all the Milky Way's intelligent species.
