Robotech: Third Invid War Pre-Preface

Acknowledging David and Chris

I need to clarify something before you read on. The following preface was included on the original Third Invid War website. David and Chris wrote it when Palladium Books® held the game’s license, so some of what’s said is clearly outdated and doesn’t apply to Strange Machine Games’ AD6/Advantage6 version. So, the preface still references the original Robotech RPG and not the latter version.

The preface is included as-is, meaning it hasn’t been changed (beyond cleaning up, formatting, and typo-fixing.) It’s not my place to change the original authors’ words regarding their project. However, the rest of the content has been edited and cleaned up a bit. This isn’t meant as a slight against David’s or Chris’ writing. It’s simply a matter of (respectfully) using the opportunity provided by otherwise preparing their work for an AD6 treatment.

As far as I know, David Deitrich is still around, but I’ve had no luck contacting him to let him know about this project. I’ve had no previous interactions with him, but I hope he has no issue with what I’ve done with his work. Chris Meadows and I spent many years interacting on the original Unofficial (and then official) Palladium Books Mailing List (PML), going back to the 1990s, including before I became a list moderator. Known as “Robotech Master,” Chris was recognized for posting his Robotech RPG fan material and was familiar to the broader Robotech fandom. Unfortunately, Chris passed away in 2020 following a car accident.

I must acknowledge that Third Invid War is a great, fun, creative work. I first came across it through Chris, who provided links to the PML in his posts. Being a big fan of the Robotech RPG (the first RPG I bought for myself), I was hooked.

It was the 1990s, while I was studying English at the University of Toronto (Scarborough Campus.) I had not yet been published with Palladium Books® (my first paid RPG gig), but had been creating my own RPG content since high school. I began sharing my work online when I gained Internet access through school and, like Chris, became well known for my Palladium Books® fan content (especially Wormwood, Nightbane®, and Heroes Unlimited™). Third Invid War drew me in right away, and I remember waiting for the school computer lab to empty so I could print the whole thing. Since then, I’ve been toying with the idea of compiling Third Invid War into a PDF to share with other fans, but I’ve never found the time. When Palladium Books® lost the Robotech license, the idea fell off my plate and was forgotten.

Years later, I saw social media posts from Strange Machine Games about acquiring the license and releasing a new game. Around the same time, I happened to find the Third Invid War files and notes on an old hard drive I was trying to recover. This renewed the idea of compiling (and now converting) David’s and Chris’ work. I began setting time aside to chip away at it.

Updating the Content

David and Chris were very generous about making their creations freely available for other Robotech fans to access and share, and I certainly don’t want to step on that spirit. However, changes and additional content are required due to the conversion of game systems and how Strange Machine Games interprets the source material for their game. In such instances, I’ve been as respectful as possible to the original content.

Some fundamental changes are necessitated by the presentation of the original version of the Third Invid War in a new format. There are also several instances where the collaboration between Chris and David was taken for granted. For example, I’ve removed content where Third Invid War references other fan content beyond it, and no permission was publicly posted for anyone other than David or Chris to use the material.

Also, it’s worth noting that Robotech: Homefront by Strange Machine Games presents six stages of Invid evolution by assigning Stage 6 to the Regis and Regent. This isn’t something that Palladium Books® did in any of its Invid-related sourcebooks, which is why David and Chris (reasonably) used Stage 6 for their newly introduced Invid. Adding the new evolutionary step to the Invid now makes the Regis and Regent Stage 7 Invid; adjust all references in Robotech: Homefront and related Strange Machine Games content accordingly.

Canonical Standing

David and Chris created Third Invid War before Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles was released, wherein the Haydonites’ role was radically altered. Therefore, the former exists in a continuity separate from the latter. You can play Third Invid War as an alternate timeline wherein Shadow Chronicles never existed, or you can adjust the chronology to account for and (likely) push back when the events of Shadow Chronicles occur. (Of course, this isn’t a problem if you stopped following Robotech after the 1980s and are only aware of the core stories up to Invid Invasion and The Sentinels.)

The Artwork

As soon as you saw this work’s cover, you likely identified one of the biggest issues with converting and updating web-based content nearly three decades later: the artwork. When Third Invid War first went online in the late 1990s, website technology was rudimentary. The best screen resolution available was much worse than what’s now available. This means Amy Borden’s and Jason Juta’s artwork used on the Third Invid War website was all in GIF and JPG formats—the best, most efficient online graphic formats at the time.

Since David and Chris built their website, screen technology, file compression, and graphic design technologies have come a long way. SVG and PNG file formats allow higher-quality images online while keeping file sizes relatively small. Unfortunately, the Third Invid War website predates all of that. So, the art I pulled from the website was usually small (probably to reduce file sizes, since it was hosted on a free web service with only a few megabytes available.) The images were 72 dpi (dots per inch), the standard at the time for online images. (For comparison, most artwork in print is 300 dpi or higher.) This standard no longer applies to online content, but because the Third Invid War website’s content hadn’t been updated in nearly three decades, it never benefited from these improvements.

Because the art is at such a low resolution and usually small in dimension, enlarging it and inserting it into its new incarnation has a noticeable effect: it’s all fuzzy. I won’t get into the technicalities of why and how this happens, but there’s a simple way of understanding it. If you connect a VCR to your modern, massive 4K flatscreen TV and watch a movie on VHS, it will also seem very fuzzy and blurry. This is because VHS tapes can’t hold as much information as modern media (e.g., a Blu-ray disc) and are analog rather than digital storage media. There’s also the fact that televisions were smaller and had much lower resolution. Playing such a movie on a bigger, high-definition TV highlights the VHS tape’s inferior quality. The same principle applies to how the original Third Invid War artwork files hold up to modern standards.

I’ve done the best I can to improve the image quality without alteration. Despite being fuzzy and showing obvious signs of their low-resolution origins, all images herein are vastly better than they would have been if used as I found them. I’ve also colored much of the art, as it helps counteract the fuzziness.

Some artwork appearing on the Third Invid War website is absent from this work because I couldn’t verify its origins, or I knew David and Chris had no legal right to permit others to use them. Only the original artwork by Amy Borden and Jason Juta is covered by David’s and Chris’ permission to share their work (with attribution.) Therefore, if I couldn’t be sure they were the artists of a given piece, or it was identified as having another source (e.g., a comic book or anime), it had to be excluded for copyright reasons.

A Final Word …

David and Chris put a lot of time, effort, and love into Robotech for the Third Invid War. I hope I’ve done their work justice.

—Steven Trustrum, 2026

Post Views: 124