As a child in 1999, he witnesses the fall of the Macross and the following Unification Wars . His family is killed before his eyes, a memory that would haunt him and turn him into a quiet and mistrusting person. He joins the U.N. Spacy as an F-14 fighter pilot. During a mission he is shot down by the anti-U.N .'s transformable SV-51 and lands in Mayan Island . He later flies the VF-0 Phoenix variable fighter under the tutelage of Roy Focker . Aside from his rear-seat radar intercept officer, Edgar La Salle , he has few friends and is slow to trust. His interactions with the cheerful Mao Nome and his growing attraction to her more reserved sister, Sara Nome , help him open up.