|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Rank: Lieutenant
Daughter of Max and Miriya Sterling, Dana is a unique character in the Robotech Odyssey. Not only is she the first child born out of a union between two races, Dana is the first child to be born from the womb of a clone. Dana is among the first graduates of the Robotech Military Academy founded in the aftermath of reconstruction following the First Robotech War. Her status as the only child of the two main heroes of the first war makes her choice of involvement in the military a matter of personal preference. She has a genuine innocence combined with a brilliant and curious mind. Cross-breeding gives her the added dimension of precognition concerning the Robotech Masters. She is a catalyst for much of the action which takes place during the Second Robotech War. Feminine and athletic, Dana also shares an uncommon psychic bond with the renegade clone known as Zor Prime.
Age: 18
"Her status as the only child of the two main heroes of the first war ..."
In episode 50, "Triumvirate", Dana tells Zor Prime that she had a brother. In truth, this is an unaltered line from SUPER DIMENSION CAVALRY SOUTHERN CROSS, which makes it suspect as far as the plans ROBOTECH's producers had at the time go; this line from the Style Guide pretty solidly confirms that they considered the line an error. In addition, the reference to a brother did not appear in McKinney's novels, and Dana's brother is never referenced again in any work, INCLUDING the early scripts for ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS.
However, with the canon currently being rebooted by Harmony Gold, the line is no longer being treated as a flub. Some interpret it as referring to Bowie, since SENTINELS suggests they grew up like siblings; however, the fact that in episode 37, "Dana's Story", Dana tells Bowie the well-worn story of how her parents met suggests this was not the original intention. Then again, they could have just been trying to kill time with a recap episode. While this scenario personally strikes me as more likely than the former, the situation still sheds doubt on the idea of Bowie being the object of Dana's brother reference.
The obvious interpretation, of course, is that Dana did indeed have a brother. Taking the SENTINELS scenario into account, where there is only one Sterling child and her parents are taking off for the stars without any children along, there is in fact the possibility that between "To The Stars" and SENTINELS another child--a younger brother for Dana--was born and somehow died, which would explain the Sterlings' need to get away from Earth despite their child, and would explain why Dana is being left behind on Earth where the Sterlings assume she'll be safe. Naturally, without the SENTINELS scenario it isn't necessary to do this and it becomes fully possible that Dana has a younger brother who lives somewhere else on Earth.
Notice that Max and Miriya's other daughter, Aurora, isn't referred to either. Consider that she only made one appearance in the TV series, via telepathic communication from across the cosmos in a vision, in episode 60, "Catastrophe", during the final battle of the Second Robotech War. Some have argued that it is possible that she was merely a figment of Dana's fevered mind, but considering that she was going to be used as a flesh-and-blood character in ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS, I doubt that this interpretation will be used in future ROBOTECH story material. I could be wrong, though.
"Cross-breeding gives her the added dimension of precognition concerning the Robotech Masters."
So the combination of modified Tirolian DNA and human DNA gives the resulting offspring limited telepathic ability where other lifeforms of Tirolian descent are concerned? This idea of limited precognition solely where the Robotech Masters are concerned is kind of absurd; a more rational interpretation of this line would be that Dana is getting glimpses into the Masters' minds and is seeing their intentions. While this would tie nicely into the Masters' whole idea of "three who act as one," I don't recall seeing too much in the TV series to solidly validate this claim.
"... Dana also shares an uncommon psychic bond with the renegade clone known as Zor Prime."
Like the previous line, this attempts to explain why Dana keeps having weird visions and dreams about Zor Prime and the Masters' flagships in orbit. Again, it suggests that mixing the modified Tirolian DNA of the Zentraedi and human DNA results in a humanoid halfbreed with limited telepathic ability that only works on other lifeforms of Tirolian descent. Since Zor's body is home to the most untainted Tirolian DNA in Earthspace, as he is a mostly unaltered clone of an "ancient" Master (see page 1-29) and the father of Robotechnology to boot, that could go to explain why her bond with him is the strongest. Plus, since Dana's sister (see episode 60, "Catastrophe") would have a similar genetic makeup, this pair of quotes, along with the theories I'm floating here to explain them, would also go towards explaining why Dana's exposure to released Protoculture energy would allow her to catch her sister's "signal" about the spores.
However, NONE of these theories are explicitly supported by the TV series; other interpretations are possible. Elements that appear in the McKinney novels and series producer Carl Macek's notes on ROBOTECH II: THE SENTINELS do suggest that the concept of telepathy would have cropped up again in the ROBOTECH saga, but since these avenues were never pursued in animation and the non-animation works produced prior to the launch of Robotech.com have been all but disowned by Harmony Gold (despite once again being in print), the inclusion of the concept of telepathy in the ROBOTECH saga seems to be presently discouraged.
