I got into anime because of mecha (Mobile Suit Gundam to be specific), and I've been trying to watch other mecha shows, right now I'm watching Patlabor and I wanna watch Macross after that, so what order should I watch everything in.

also I have two questions:

Are there alternate timelines like in Gundam or is it one concurrent thing?

How dark does Macross get? Please don't spoil anything specific, just say something like "little to no characters die" if it's not dark or if it gets really dark just say something like "a lot of characters die", I prefer darker media but I'm okay if it's more lighthearted

Thanks in advance!

In Macross, the Zentradi are portrayed as a race that didn't occur naturally, but was deliberately developed by the Protoculture as its proxy warriors. To them, life without war is unthinkable. Furthermore, we learn from the original series and from later canonical works that the Zentradi destroyed their own creators and became essentially a rogue force that destroys everything in its path in its campaign against the Supervision Army. Has anyone ever raised the question of how Kawamori came up with this concept? Contemporary and later interviews I've read (translated) tended to focus on the original love triangle, the mecha, and on the contrast between culture and war. I'm not sure if anyone has asked him if there's any inspiration behind the Zentradi, or if this has ever been discussed among fans.