The Ballad of TR Edwards (Part 2)

Welcome back, listeners for the second part of our biography of Thomas Riley Edwards, the man who sold the world. Once again I'm going to be digging the dirt on our favourite one-eyed fighter ace, spook, ranking officer and greatest traitor to all humanity to see what we can find. As always, I'm trying to keep this above the 'deep crazy' level, but with our boy T.R. it isn't easy. I can't promise you that this won't dovetail into the Protoculture spiders from Mars, but I can try.

So when we'd last left T.R. he had a cozy senior place somewhere inside the UEDF command. We can't say exactly where, as a lot of those records have rather conveniently been lost, but from what I have been able to gather, he was some sort of arch-spook who had gotten that way through backstabbing everyone he had ever come across. None the less, he seemed to have the trust of Admiral Donnie Hayes, and was firmly ensconced in their ultimate fallback base and doomsday weapon in Alaska base.

During this time, Edwards formed alliances with two figures within the UEDF command. The first is Anatole Leonard, who at that point was a young gun who had made his name with Project Excalibur. Of course, the fact that Leonard had also covertly been a radical member of the Faithful, a movement that Edwards had his own interactions with probably helped build their relationship, giving Edwards something he could hold over Leonard if needed. After the start of the first Robotech War, Leonard was sidelined, what with his being a ground forces guy in a space war, so he doubtless appreciated Edwards' support.

And number two was Lazlo Zand. Told you this was going to be hard to keep out of the deep crazy. I haven't been able to find much on their connection as yet, but given how hard it is to pin down anything on Zand, that's not entirely surprising either. Suffice it to say, the pair were connected and were working together on something. No idea what, but with Zand it could be anything. He could have been trying to breach the fabric of time, space, death and reality. Or he could have just been trying to make some amazing parfaits.

Come the Rain of Death, and Edwards is one of only two (known) survivors of Alaska base; even then he comes out minus one eye and half his face. He somehow makes it back to what's left of civilization and manages to find his way into the reborn UEDF, based on the back of his experience both as a pilot and as an official. Of course, the fact that nearly everyone who had past dealings with him had died or was out of the way must have helped. And if Admiral Henry Gloval had any issues with Edwards, he also doubtless appreciated having an experienced officer on his side. After all, Gloval and Edwards had been a part of that first expedition into the SDF-1 back in '99.

From what I can find, Edwards was involved with (or possibly even bought in by) Braxton Millburn's little cabal. You know, the 'rebuild the UEG but make sure we're the people on top of it' collection that includes General Dennis Maistroff, Colonel Caruthers and Senators Stinson and Longchamps that we will look in to one day (promise). Maybe they thought they could make him their own personal spook to get their way. I can imagine he did a lot to aid their rise to power, and was almost certainly responsible for their collective downfalls.

Edwards spends much of the Malcontent Uprisings flying below the radar, both literally and figuratively. There's very little that I could find on his actions during the period, but he appears to have been quietly worming his way into the UEDF with the intent of solidifying his position and building his own powerbase. Certainly those in charge seemed to trust him enough to give him a position of rank within the rebuilt organisation. His Ghost Rider squadron were involved with a number of operations against Malcontent forces at the time, which doubtless did a lot to improve his reputation.

While I can't prove it, there's also some evidence that Edwards was engaged in covert strikes against neutral and non-aligned states across the world. This may have been about 'encouraging' them to come onboard with the new UEG one way or another. Or it may have been his way of settling accounts and getting rid of anyone who might have remembered him from before the war. Your call.

At the same time, there's also evidence that Edwards was feeding intel to Anatole Leonard and the Army of the Southern Cross in order to build up his ally's reputation and presence. I mean, sure, the timing of the Cairo strike may have been good planning on Leonard's part, but his being in the right place at the right time to eliminate a number of ranking renegade Zentraedi officers in a move that helps make his reputation? Yeah, that has T.R.'s stink all over it. Some other bits and pieces suggest that Edwards was helping Leonard to acquire weapons, either directly or indirectly.

Publicly, he also did a lot to bring in and legitimise Leonard, helping to put the fat buffoon in a place where the UEEF were willing to place their faith in him to defend the Earth while they were away. Now I have to wonder what Edwards was going to get out of this, but with hindsight I have some theories. Remember, these are just theories and I can't prove a thing here. But at the same time, I've seen people make bigger claims based on a lot less.

You know, like the SDF-2 on the moon folks.

So here's what I think. It's commonly accepted that Edwards had plans to take control of the UEEF and, through it, seize power for himself, be it as the ruler of Earth or the Local Group or whatever else. Having Leonard in charge of protecting Earth aided him in two ways; the first was that Leonard was somebody that Edwards knew, had a lot of dirt on and could easily manipulate to his ends. The second was that he knew that Leonard was a moron and that if it came to a war, Edwards could beat him.

You know, maybe that's the real reason why Edwards didn't like Rick Hunter. The guy was squeaky clean and had no skeletons in the closet that Edwards could use against him.

So anyway, we end up with T.R. Edwards as one of the senior officers of the UEEF, in a position of trust and authority where he will ultimately make his big play. He's about to head out to the stars where he will rise so very high and fall so very hard. But before that happens, his chum Leonard hands him one last gift. At a press conference, Leonard undercuts faith in his own army, accuses the Expeditionary Force and the Hunters specifically of abandoning Earth and all but calls Exedore Formo a spy.

It couldn't have gone better if Edwards had planned it. Which is to say, he probably did.

Sadly, this is where the Andrews Archive runs out. Part three will be a bit as it will mean plumbing through a lot of resources, but trust me, I will be there.

Until then, find the truth and keep it weird.