Miriya Parina Sterling: Difference between revisions
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==Robotech Expeditionary Force== |
==Robotech Expeditionary Force== |
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In 2022, Miriya joins her husband, Max, and their friends [[Rick Hunter|Rick]] and [[Lisa Hayes|Lisa Hunter]] aboard the [[SDF-3]] Pioneer Expedition in search of the [[Robotech Masters]]' homeworld. Max and Miriya reluctantly leave Dana, now 10 years old behind with Major General [[Rolf Emerson]]. Dana would become the leading character of the [[Second Robotech War]]. During the expedition, Max and Miriya have a second daughter, [[Maia Sterling]], who would become the leader of Skull Squadron during the [[Battle of Reflex Point]]. Max and Miriya hoped that the mission would be over quickly but events would keep the SDF-3 away from Earth for the rest of Dana's childhood. |
[[Image:Miriya_and_Dana_in_Robotech_2_-_The_Sentinels.JPG|thumb|right|Miriya and [[Dana Sterling|Dana]] as they appear in [[Robotech II: The Sentinels]]]]In 2022, Miriya joins her husband, Max, and their friends [[Rick Hunter|Rick]] and [[Lisa Hayes|Lisa Hunter]] aboard the [[SDF-3]] Pioneer Expedition in search of the [[Robotech Masters]]' homeworld. Max and Miriya reluctantly leave Dana, now 10 years old behind with Major General [[Rolf Emerson]]. Dana would become the leading character of the [[Second Robotech War]]. During the expedition, Max and Miriya have a second daughter, [[Maia Sterling]], who would become the leader of Skull Squadron during the [[Battle of Reflex Point]]. Max and Miriya hoped that the mission would be over quickly but events would keep the SDF-3 away from Earth for the rest of Dana's childhood. |
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==Current Status== |
==Current Status== |
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Revision as of 05:54, 5 July 2008
- This article is about the character from Robotech. See Milia Fallyna Jenius for the original inspiration for this character in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into List of Robotech characters. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2007. |
Miriya Parina Sterling, voiced by Edie Mirman, is one of the fictional characters in the anime television series Robotech. She is the self-styled "finest combat pilot in all the Zentraedi forces".
First Robotech War
Miriya enters the First Robotech War as Commander Azonia's first officer and the leader of the Quadrono forces. She is distinguished by her green eyes and her long green hair. Miriya is a female warlord and is considered the greatest warrior of all the Zentraedi. She is a fearsome warrior who pilots the Zentraedi Power Armor and she considered herself to be unbeatable in combat.
In April of 2011, upon a challenge from Khyron that there was a "Micronian" [human] ace aboard the SDF-1 that even she could not best, Miriya takes it upon herself to engage him in combat but finds herself frustrated as she cannot defeat him. Determined to maintain her reputation, Miriya decides to be micronized to human form so she can infiltrate the SDF-1 to find the pilot and kill him. During the micronization process, Miriya's height is reduced from 8.55 metres (28 feet) to 178cm (5.8 feet) and her weight is reduced from 6250 kilograms (13,779 pounds) to 53 kilograms (117 pounds). At a video game arcade, she again finds herself unbeatable until she is challenged to a duel by Max Sterling, an incredibly skilled pilot and the pilot whom Miriya had dueled against in real combat. Max, who is attracted to Miriya, challenges her to a video game, in which Max defeats her. Miriya concludes (correctly) that Max must be the ace pilot which she faced in real combat. Miriya is furious that she has been beaten again but as she storms off, Max asks her out on a date. Miriya still determined to defeat him, accepts, although she secretly plots to kill him. Later, when Max meets with her in a park, Miriya reveals that she is a Zentraedi and tries to kill him with a knife. After a short fight, Max disarms her. Beaten for a third time, Miriya becomes emotionally despondent, falls to her knees, and asks Max to end her life. Crying, Miriya believes she cannot live with the shame of being defeated and that her only option now to die. As she waits for Max to kill her, Max puts his finger under her chin and says he could never kill her because she is so beautiful. Max and Miriya look into each other's eyes and Miriya realizes that the feelings she holds toward Max are not of hate but of love and the two passionately kiss. Max asks Miriya to marry him, and Miriya accepts. Wedding preparations begin the same day and the two are married in a historic wedding aboard the SDF-1. Max and Miriya are the first union of a human and a Zentraedi, which becomes an unlikely symbol of peace between the two races as their wedding raises hopes throughout the SDF-1 that peace with the Zentraedi is possible.
The wedding proves to be such a significant event that the Zentraedi also observe the wedding (which was broadcast on television). Breetai asks Exedore what Miriya is doing and Exedore explains that she is "getting married," which he explains to Breetai is "a condition in which male and female live together." Breetai, despite his view that marriage is a "strange Micronian custom," nonetheless believes that Miriya is enjoying herself and he wonders aloud what he suspects: that Miriya, like previous Zentraedi defectors, has found the human was of life too enjoyable to resist. Exedore comments that human emotions are something which the Zentraedi seem to have no defense against. Breetai is subsequently ordered by Zentraedi supreme commander Dolza to launch a full scale assault to destroy the SDF-1, but by now, Breetai, like many of the Zentraedi under him, is having second thoughts. The battle begins after the wedding ceremony and Miriya insists that Max take her with him in his veritech fighter. Holding hands, the two race off to battle. During the fight, Miriya shows Max how to disable Zentraedi power armer without killing the pilots. This new tactic is then utilized by the rest of the SDF-1's forces. This development, combined with the increased exposure to human emotions and the realization that the human way of life may just be more enjoyable (a feeling that was amplified by watching Miriya, their greatest warrior, get married to a human) causes a wave of mutanies to spread through the Zentraedi fleet as soldiers refuse to fight and turn against their superiors. Breetai, realizing that his forces can no longer fight, is forced to call a truce with the SDF-1, although by now even Breetai has accepted that the humans do not have to be his enemies.
Miriya initially has trouble adopting to life among humans - on their wedding night, her first attempt to cook proves disasterous (and humorous) as she mistakingly uses cooking oil in a coffee pot, which starts a fire in the kitchen. Max, after putting out the fire, quips that mornings are going to be rough without any coffee. Despite the rough start, the two enjoy their wedding night. In the Jack McKinney novel Force of Arms (book five of the series) Miriya, who had never even heard of, let alone experienced, physical intimacy before, later reflects on this experience: kissing was still an amazing thing to her; lovemaking left her at a complete loss for words.
Miriya sticks by Max's side through the rest of the war and helps rebuild Earth from the ashes left by Dolza's fleet. Miriya proves herself an extremely skilled veritech pilot becomes Max's wingmate and pilots a distinctive red veritech fighter alongside Max's blue one. In October of 2012, Miriya gives birth to a daughter, Dana Sterling, the first child born from a Human/Zentraedi union. Eight months later, in June of 2013, Miriya, along with Max, blast their way into an enemy Zentraedi factory satellite and proudly displays her baby daughter to the Zentraedi onboard. The Zentraedi, who have never seen a baby before, conclude Dana is a mutation and is contagious and flee in terror, allowing the United Earth Forces and their Zentraedi allies under Breetai to seize the factory.
Secondary Continuity
For Miriya, the emotional changes she experiences during the series are profound. At the beginning of the series, Miriya is a ruthless Zentraedi warrior who has known nothing but war her entire life. In only two years, she becomes not only a loving wife but a also a mother. This incredible transformation is expressed in the following passage from the decanonized Jack McKinney novel "Doomsday" (book six of the series):
The baby [Dana] was peacefully asleep on her breast, and just looking at her, it was all Miriya could do to keep from weeping for joy. A miracle, she told herself ten times a day: that she and Max could produce such innocent loveliness; that she, a former warrior, could feel this way about anyone or anything. Such unknown contentment and pure rapture.
In the same novel, Rick Hunter writes, in reference to the operation against the factory satellite, that: "Love, like size, had lost all meaning - love was a battle maneuver ... The only one among us who seemed to know anything about that elusive emotion was Miriya, wedded to the infant she'd given birth to as much as she was Max." As Max and Miriya join in the subsequent battle against the now disorganized enemy Zentraedi fleet, Miriya pilots her fighter while holding Dana in her lap. The book states that Miriya fought with more fury than she even had before "as though the small life she held in her arms was a treasure more precious than any the universe could offer, a life worth preserving at all costs."
In the decanonized book "Force of Arms" (book 5 of the series) by Jack McKinney, Miriya giving birth to Dana is all the more extraordinary because nobody could quite figure out how Miriya had been able to conceive a child since no Zentraedi male-female reproduction had ever been recorded. Explanations that were provided are that Miriya's consumption of human-style food (as opposed to antiseptic rations of the Zentraedi) and her exposure to emotions had caused subtle biochemical changes. Some even wondered if Dana was actually Max and Miriya's child at all but, as proved by exhaustive tests, Dana was indisputably their child. To Lisa Hayes, the only explanation that made sense (or mattered) was that Dana was the result of the love that Max and Miriya had for one another.
Robotech Expeditionary Force
In 2022, Miriya joins her husband, Max, and their friends Rick and Lisa Hunter aboard the SDF-3 Pioneer Expedition in search of the Robotech Masters' homeworld. Max and Miriya reluctantly leave Dana, now 10 years old behind with Major General Rolf Emerson. Dana would become the leading character of the Second Robotech War. During the expedition, Max and Miriya have a second daughter, Maia Sterling, who would become the leader of Skull Squadron during the Battle of Reflex Point. Max and Miriya hoped that the mission would be over quickly but events would keep the SDF-3 away from Earth for the rest of Dana's childhood.
Current Status
Miriya's status and location in the new Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles saga is unknown. Unlike the rest of Robotech's surviving first generation characters, there is no mention of Miriya in the comic series Robotech: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles. Many fans consider this and the fact that all of the other Zentraedi characters of note are already deceased as evidence that Miriya herself has already passed away. Maia mentions (in Shadow Chronicles) that "Most of my family was aboard the SDF-3." Which family members is left unstated, though the use of a plural form seems to indicate multiple family members. One explanation that has been proposed is that Miriya died giving birth to Maia Sterling, which would also explain the tension between Maia and Dana Sterling in the comic series. However, an alternate explanation for the tension between Dana and Maia is that Dana is angry that, after being left behind on Earth, her parents had another daughter and that she had, in her mind, been "replaced" by Maia. However, there is no evidence to support either of these explanations, although it is possible that Miriya's fate will be revealed in a future Robotech installment.