It started in August of 1980 when established anime studio, Studio Nue, was contacted by Uizu Corporation to create a new science fiction anime series. A deal was quickly struck, with Studio Nue responsible for the planning and design of the series while Uizu would be in charge of the production.

Uizu wanted to create a transforming robot show, and since the anime movie "Be Forever Yamato" was a recent hit, why not make a space ship that can transform into a giant robot. Of course lead mecha designer, Shoji Kawamori, added some of his own ideas, mainly adding a city of around 56,000 people into the ship. The name of the show was Battle City Megarodo (or just Battle City Megaroad).

It was going to start in 1999 with an alien vessel crashing to Earth, and humans rebuilding it over the course of the next 10 years. The builders started off being sentient robots, but became a race of giants. And, to top it off, Uizu wanted it to be a parody of giant robot shows.

Other concepts were added, of course. One plot thread would have involved an all female bridge crew (including the captain), where an alien spy would have an affair with her. To make sure they would be of compatible sizes, the concept of Micronization was born.

That evolved into a trio of micron spies and a female ace spy (Miriya) falling in love with a (non lead) Bishonen pilot (Maximilion Jenius).

Another character came into being when Shoji Kawamori was looking through the sketch book of his friend, Haruhiko Mikimoto, in February of 1981, and saw a sketch of a cute chinese girl. He was quickly hired as the character designer for Battle City Megaroad, and his creation was originally going to be a chinese restaurant delivery girl who would deliver food to the bridge, but she became more and more popular with the planning staff, and eventually evolved into the idol singer we know as Lynn Minmay. And her role in the parody concept was that broadcasts of her music and films would be intercepted by the aliens who would go ga-ga over her interpretation of Earth culture, eventually become Microns, and defect to the Megaroad.

It never saw the light of day as Uizu Corporation was dissolved in 1981, and Studio Nue was left with sole custody of the show.

But the story doesn't end there.

Studio Nue wasn't comfortable with the parody angle, so they made it a more serious story, added some transformable mecha designs they shelved because they didn't want them used for something silly, and changed the name to "Super Dimension Fortress Macross".

And thus the story truly begins . . .