Theory: Connection between city ship Altira and the Ship of Alus

[RedWolf]

Some time ago somebody at /m/ said Alus is a quirky way romanizing Earth.

I got the impression from the OVAs that the Macross was not the Alus(u). I mean, considering how poorly the Macross fared and all.

Looking at the katakana though, I think maybe the planet Earth is the Alus(u).
Earth: アース
Alus(u): アルス
ア = "ea" or "a"
ス = "s(u)" or "th"
ー = makes a long "a" sound, or "er" sound
ル = "r(u)" or "l(u)"
So when you look at it, Alus(u) (アルス) could be a quirky way of romanzing "Earth". And given that the Marduk were a wandering, nomadic people who lived on ships, ANY home might be thought of as a ship or boat.

Then I read the Macross II manga which furthers that theory.

Different from the OVA Marduk language English translation.

Note: Macross II is a sequel to Macross DYRL.

The Marduk have a legend about the Ship of Alus. Alus isn't the name of the ship it is the name of where or whom it is from.

If we equate Alus is Earth I can think of one source of that ship, the Protoculture city ship Altira.

20,000 years before the Protoculture left their city ship underwater and left for space as the Zentradi entered Sol. They never returned. (DYRL)

The Marduk has been in space for so long it could mean alternatively that home(planet) means a ship. For someone like Isthar the Ship of Alus refers to a physical ship. To Ingues Alus is a planet, he likely longer lived before the legend changed to its present form.

Are the Marduk the Protoculture from Altira? Frankly I don't know. However if Alus is Earth there is a connection between the former inhabitants of Altira and the ship of legend of the Marduk.

[Seto Kaiba]

Some time ago somebody at /m/ said Alus is a quirky way romanizing Earth.

The kana for "Earth" is アース.

The kana for "Alus" in Macross II is アルス.

So, no... the spellings are similar, but アルス is not an alternate kana spelling of "Earth".

Then I read the Macross II manga which furthers that theory.

The Macross II manga has a translation that is, at its best, rather spotty and of indifferent quality.

(It also really doesn't have any bearing on the story of the animated series.)

[Tochiro]

Yep, Seto summed it up well.
Theres no connection between the kana spelling of the two words.
They are completely different terms and not something that a Japanese speaker would use interchangeably.

[Robowang]

I still like to think the Marduk are the Protoculture, or what's left of it. Makes for a more direct sequel to DYRL.

Is there ANY evidence to back up that speculation? Even minor?

[no3Ljm]

I still like to think the Marduk are the Protoculture, or what's left of it. Makes for a more direct sequel to DYRL.

Is there ANY evidence to back up that speculation? Even minor?

It's hard to say there is. But Kawamori already stated that Macross II is somehow an 'alternate story' after DYRL. Whereas official DYRL story supposedly is a retelling of Macross TV series 'in-continuity' for the Macross characters. Think of it like a movie/series within a series/movie. Kinda like when they featured Macross Zero movie/story in the Frontier series.

[Seto Kaiba]

I still like to think the Marduk are the Protoculture, or what's left of it. Makes for a more direct sequel to DYRL.

Is there ANY evidence to back up that speculation? Even minor?

Macross II's director Ken'ichi Yatagai dropped a few hints that were leading in that direction in B-Club Magazine Vol.79's feature on the OVA, but nothing that's particularly definitive. The Mardook are an ancient miclone group with males and females coexisting, who regard their culture as sacred, and their technology surpasses that of the Zentradi and Meltrandi. Considering the state of the setting at the time of writing, it's at least not improbable that the Mardook were the descendants of another group of Protoculture who fled their civilization's collapse and tried to start over.

Of course, as Macross II is a "parallel world" story, the yardstick for identifying the Protoculture is somewhat different. They're only "advanced aliens" rather than the "sufficiently advanced aliens" that they seem to have graduated to around Macross Zero.

[Kelsain]

My thought was that Altira was the "turtle shell" that the Bird Human dropped in the legends of the Mayan in Mac0. This is then seen in the geography of the strangely arranged chain of islands around Mayan and the mountains that the people hide in. And of course, all the very interesting structures we see in the Mayan reefs & the Bird Human's head plugged in down there.

In my head canon, this explains away the floating rock business. They are pieces of PC tech, which interact with gravity control fields that are activated by Sara's singing.

[GabrielV]

I was watching Macross II for the first time in a long time recently. In fact, I think it's the first time I've ever watched the subbed version as opposed to the dub.

I honestly never noticed how horrible the dub was until now. I was just used to it, I guess. It isn't all bad. It has these little snippets of greatness. Feff is much better cast in the English dub than the original. Hibiki's line of "It's such a spectacle, it MUST be Nexx." is so much better than the sub translation.

Anyway...

All I know about Macross II is what I saw on screen, and was able to determine from poring over animation model sheets in my This is Animation Special: Macross II art book back when I was playing Palladium's RPG and trying to patch their bad info. So, I don't know what an associated manga says or what the creators have said in interviews.

Just by going by what is on the screen, Macross II feels like an OAV meant to set up a new series or a string of more OAVs. By the end, the Macross is pretty definitively not the Alus. There's also the question of what the ship Ishtar keeps having visions of actually is. As the OAV ends, it isn't explicitly stated, but Ishtar and the Marduuk's departure seems to be in order to quest for the legend of the Alus.

Macross II was clearly meant to be expanded. Feff's whole subplot is left flapping in the breeze at the end. You have characters like Nexx and the Faerie Squadron girls who are completely extraneous in this, but would definitely have had reasons for being in the story had it continued. Then there's Hibiki, who is pretty much a spectator in the second half of the OAV, but since he was morphing into a "truth seeker" then he fits in perfectly with helping in a continuing story hunting down the Alus.

Anyway, that's my take on it. The Ship of the Alus is a dangling plot thread left intentionally unexplained for a later installment which never materialized.

[Seto Kaiba]

Just by going by what is on the screen, Macross II feels like an OAV meant to set up a new series or a string of more OAVs. By the end, the Macross is pretty definitively not the Alus. There's also the question of what the ship Ishtar keeps having visions of actually is. As the OAV ends, it isn't explicitly stated, but Ishtar and the Marduuk's departure seems to be in order to quest for the legend of the Alus.

... your conclusion is pretty much the exact opposite of the OVA's presentation though.

The Mardook's legend of the Ship of Alus (アルスの舟) basically identifies it solely as a ship from a blue planet that they would one day encounter, which would bring peace to their people and effectively end their crusade across the galaxy. Whether or not there was ever a real, physical Ship of Alus that was the basis for their religion's prophecy about it, but there's no denying the Macross's role in the war essentially fulfilled the criteria of the prophecy. It was a ship from a blue planet (Earth) that brought peace (via the songs of love spread by the emulators) to the Mardook and ended their genocidal crusade across the galaxy. Ingues and Ishtar's conclusions were that the ship was the Ship of Alus, and that seems to have turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy as Ingues goes above and beyond his usual cruelty to ensure that he isn't overthrown... resulting in pushing his people too far and them deciding they're better off without him.

As far as why they leave Earth after signing a peace treaty with the UN Government... that's to go figure out what to do with their lives now that the ancient raison d'être behind their culture and society has gone up in a thermonuclear explosion.

[GabrielV]

I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say my interpretation is the "exact opposite" of what the OAV is portraying. I don't even have any issue with the theory as presented by the OP and you.

I've tried to compose a further explanation of my view, but what I keep running up against is that I don't precisely recall when Ingues first mentions the Ship of the Alus. I need to sit down and watch the whole thing again and take some notes. Plus, I'll make a point to watch the subbed version again instead of the dub version I'm used to, under the assumption the sub should have fewer inaccuracies in the translation.

But, to be honest, I just recently watched the first 4 episodes with subs, and then received the Blu Ray set and watched the whole thing again without any translation. So, I'm a little burnt out on the show right now.

I want to get back to this, though, because for all it's flaws, Macross II is one of my classic favorites.

[Zinjo]

If M2 were part of the official continuity in some fashion, I would like to believe the Mardook would be a fleet of formerly mind controlled SA troops who built a religion around conquest.

[Seto Kaiba]

If M2 were part of the official continuity in some fashion, I would like to believe the Mardook would be a fleet of formerly mind controlled SA troops who built a religion around conquest.

The OVA's director seemed to be leaning more toward the Mardook being a group of Protoculture who, like the ones from the Altira in DYRL?, decided to leg it as their civilization collapsed and start over elsewhere... but were less peaceful about their plans for after.