cap" (a la Firefox or the later Macross spin-off Macross Plus), in addition to the joysticks and pedals seen in the show. Using a chronology that slightly contradicts the cartoon itself, chiefly by placing the Second Robotech War seventeen years after the first, instead of fifteen. The above-mentioned 21st century reboot of the timeline created further disparities; McKinney had Scott Bernard entering the Third Robotech War in 2034 and the conflict ending in 2035, by the new timeline has him enter in 2042, and the war end in 2044. Further, the novels have the SDF-3 launching in 2020 (and the REF's arrival in Tirol takes five years in real time, leading the force to assume it's still 2020 in their calendars), where the revised timeline follows through with the original intent of the unproduced cartoon by placing it in 2022. The divergences can be explained partly by a lack of translated source material from the original shows—meaning that the writers could only go by what was seen on the screen and the materials they had been given—and partly by a desire to tie the series together even more completely than the television show, sometimes by including material that never ended up being animated. In particular, the "Shapings of the Protoculture" enabled this unification, serving as the deus ex machina to Robotech's Greek tragedy. At least some of the elements for which the novels have been criticized were directly suggested by Carl Macek during Daley and Luceno's consultations with him. Bibliography The following is the list of novels released by Del Rey in publishing order, Omnibus Editions and a rough chronological story order, except that the events in books #13–17 (The Sentinels) are actually concurrent with books #7–12: * - The last two chapters of Rubicon reference events taking place after Before the Invid StormBooks #1–12 novelize the story of the TV series; Books #1–6 cover the story of The Macross Saga (at the time known simply as the "First Generation"); The Masters (the "Second Generation") is covered in Books #7–9; and finally, New Generation ("Third Generation") is adapted in Books #10–12. Books #13–17 document the story of the aborted sequel TV series, The Sentinels. Book #18 is unique as it is set after the events of the final episode of Robotech and wraps up all of the outstanding plotlines and questions that remained after the series ended. Published in 1989,