The Ballad of TR Edwards (Part 1)

So there's two problems with trying to write a biography of T.R. Edwards.

The first is that it's very hard to find any accurate sources about the man and his history. By some happenstance, anyone who really knew the guy is either dead, off in space or both. Funny how that works out, but there you go. I mean, you can say that part of it's understandable; after all, T.R. was around before the Rain of Death, and admittedly a lot of people died around then. It's more that when you look at those he was actually connected to that things look a bit odd.

On top of that, a lot of the records around him are also rather conspicuously missing. I know, I know, Rain of Death and all that. Near-total destruction of all human history and culture and the species and everything. I get it. But again, you know, things relating to him specifically are very conspicuous in their absence. There's fragmentary records and some headlines, but it's the details that are once again oddly missing.

You'd almost think the guy had something to hide. Besides, you know, half his face.

The second problem is that looking into T.R. Edwards tends to turn into a weird rabbit hole where you get lost in the weeds. You start with him and then next thing you know you're chasing the many lives of Lalzo Zand, or the Salamander or the IHE or the Omega Veritech or whatever else. I don't know why, but the guy comes up a lot in paranoid nutcase circles. I'm gonna try avoiding that, but it won't be easy. Last thing I wanna do is end up sounding like one of those “SDF-2 was on the moon” weirdoes.

But yours truly managed to come into some really juicy stuff courtesy of a, uh, friend in the Shimada Yakuza who in turn had dug into some sealed records in Neo-Tokyo. Turns out that somebody else had an interest in Edwards, being none other than ASC Colonel B.D. Andrews. And while yes, I know that Andrews is a magnet for conspiracy nuts as well (and we will unpack that some time) this was just too good to pass up.

And lo and behold, it was everything I'd hoped it would be. Now I should ask why Andrews was so interested in Edwards (Besides their shared love of using their initials) but all I found fit together just right. So here's part one of the ballad of T.R. Edwards.

Thomas Reilly Edwards was born in what was then the United States of America circa 1970. He joined the Air Force as soon as he was able to and graduated top of his class just as the Civil War was breaking out. However, rather than serving his country, he instead was motivated by those big ol' credit signs and turned to mercenary work for whoever would pay him. While he worked for the NEACAPs a lot, he was far from picky in his clientele. And here's the thing; he was a good pilot. Possibly one of the best in the world. And he could demand whatever price he wanted.

Enter Roy Fokker; also from the US, also a skilled pilot, also blond. The two of them clashed a number of times during the Civil War, and developed something of a strong rivalry. They were pretty much an even match, coming out more or less equal in their exchanges. But their ideology couldn't be more different if they tried; Fokker was patriotic, loyal and honest, while Edwards just loved the smell of money. Or so it seemed.

We get to 1999 and the Visitor literally crashes onto the scene and suddenly everything changes. Cease-fire is called and a multi-faction research team is sent to explore the crashed ship. Lead by Henry Gloval, the team includes Dr Emil Lang, Roy Fokker and our friend, T.R. Edwards who is apparently there as a representative of the NEACAP. Why did they send a mercenary outsider and not one of their own or a scientist or whatever else? That's a good question, and one that's open to speculation. Maybe they figured that his known history with Fokker (who was a known associate of Admiral Donald “Don't call me Nicholas” Hayes who was running the show) would be useful. Or maybe Edwards really wanted to be in the first team going in and had some juicy blackmail material on the local Commisar. Personally I suspect the latter.

While most of what happened on that initial expedition remains classified (still), Edwards comes out of it not just alive but clearly moved by what he saw. In short order he becomes a UEG loyalist, abandoning his mercenary past at the seeming drop of a hat. With what we know now we can speculate, but I imagine that he figured that he wanted to be on the winning side, and that was going to whoever was first to unlock the secrets of whatever was on that ship.

Unlike Fokker who went full test pilot, Edwards becomes some sort of spook working for UEG intelligence. While he's mostly meant to be working from Geneva, he keeps showing up on Macross Island like a bad penny during 2004-5, and seems to always be there whenever something is afoot. The Faithful's riots and assassination of their founder, Conrad Wilbur? He's there. The Lemurians come back from their watery graves? TR's on the scene, having apparently set them up for the fall. The inexplicable bombing of a diner that happens to be popular with UEDF cadets? He's basically watching it happen. During this time he seems to have become quite chummy with Anatole Leonard, possibly in one of those 'play both sides against the middle' things.

I can't prove it, but there's evidence to link Edwards back to the *Achillies* incident, even if it is tangentially. One of the conspirators was Toshiro Nagata, the former head of NEACAP intelligence, and somebody Edwards would have been involved with one way or another during his time working for them. And while it is known that the conspirators were aided by the Salamander (oops, dovetailing already), I have to wonder if Edwards was also onboard with them and giving them help. After all, giving the AUL a whole space destroyer could aid him in a number of ways, especially given that there was every chance that Donny Hayes could have ended up dead depending on how things unfolded. And if Nagata ended up dead, it'd probably suit Edwards just fine.

His involvement with the AUL would go even further. In 2007 he defected to their cause who took him in despite his being a UEG spook. Now maybe they wanted him for his skills as a pilot or maybe they thought he would be a goldmine of information, but come on, why would you trust him? However, it has to be said that you can draw a direct line from the AUL to some of the people Edwards worked for back in the day, so maybe they knew his reputation, could vouch for him or figured they could keep an eye on him. Or, again, he had a bag full of blackmail material ready to go.

Only surprise, it was a trick all along! Edwards flips back to the UEG the next year, and brings with him enough intel to put the AUL into the ground for good. Edwards is a big hero of the UEG and is accepted back into the fold without question. Now while it's never been definitively said that he was a double-agent there to fake out the AUL, it does all add up. He gets in there, he learns all their dirty secrets, he figures out who's backing them and then he feeds all that intel back to his paymasters who give him a big fat reward for a job well done. Plus it conveniently puts some people who might have had dirt on him into the ground. Funny that.

After that Edwards disappears into a hole in the ground. Literally, in as far as he was assigned to a nonspecific position in Alaska base. This means that he's on Earth when the SDF-1 takes Macross Island for its trip out across the Solar System, and he's there when the UEG tries to cover it all up with their 'blown up by the AUL' story. I can only assume that Edwards helped embellish the details a bit and sell the idea that a defunct organisation had managed to somehow completely erase an entire island and 1200 meter long alien spaceship from the map.

And as you can imagine, he was still on Earth when the Zentraedi decided to deal with the 'micronian problem' for good. But that's for part two.

Until then, find the truth and keep it weird.