Macross City Ships?

[Mafty]

So is it ever explained how exactly the Macross City Ships operate? The environment seems less sterile than the Colonies in Gundam, and almost like it can support an ecosystem. Are the Cities and Island's released from their domes on the planets, or are the buildings transported from the dome?

[Seto Kaiba]

So is it ever explained how exactly the Macross City Ships operate? The environment seems less sterile than the Colonies in Gundam, and almost like it can support an ecosystem. Are the Cities and Island's released from their domes on the planets, or are the buildings transported from the dome?

The earliest emigrant ships were basically just cities inside the superstructure of a long-range spacecraft. From the 3rd Generation emigrant ships on, the designers started trying to make them actually pretty nice places to live. (Some notes from Macross Plus suggest the spartan conditions the earliest emigrant ships had prompted some rioting.) That said, any semblance of a natural ecosystem is artificial and carefully stage-managed fakery intended to improve quality of life. The sky, sunrise and sunset are holograms projected onto the dome. Natural areas are carefully maintained and cultivated parklands. Rain is managed using sprinkler systems built into the dome. Recycling of materals is handled using sophisticated chemical processing plants. The latest 5th Generation emigrant ships finally transitioned towards an artificial but self-sustaining ecosystem called a bioplant that used a carefully tailored "natural" ecology to assist the ship's chemical recycling processes and improve emigrant comfort. The titular Macross Frontier was a bioplant ship.

When emigrant ships settle on a planet, the dome remains in place and the city inside the dome generally becomes the first real city on that newly settled planet. Sometimes it ends up a district of a greater city as construction outside the dome starts like Barette City on Ragna. Partly it seems to be that it's difficult to actually disassemble the dome, but partly that it's best to have a place to fall back to if the planet is attacked or turns out to be unsuitable for further development, so they can just pick up and leave if need be.