Sara Nome

Sara Nome is a fictional character in the Macross universe. She appears in the prequel Macross Zero.

Fictional Biography
Since childhood Sara has been groomed to become Mayan Island's priestess/shaman, a position of great spiritual importance to the people of the secluded island. It also means having the "mystical power" of interacting with the island's mysterious alien ruins, a little-understood ability that she manifests through singing an ancient Mayan chant. She also gets occasional visions into the future. This power seems to run through her family's blood as her little sister Mao also displays the same abilities to a lesser degree.

As a child she agreed to let a visiting scientist test her blood (an act forbidden by the island's traditions) in exchange for a pretty bauble. The test confirmed her special properties and would later make the island's inhabitants the focus of research and then armed conflict. Due to this incident Sara has grown up suspicious of outsiders and very protective of her people's beliefs. She resents the wind of change that the abrupt arrival of U.N. pilot Shin Kudo brings to her home, yet she realizes how powerless she is against it as she foresees the destruction and violence that is to come.

During the final episode (and due to Sara's chant), the extraterrestrial object known as Bird Human by the Mayan people awakens, assimilating Sara into its head. Shin Kudo manages to break through the Bird Human's attacks and makes Sara realise that it is him instead of an evil spirit (called a "Kadun" by the Mayans). The U.N. Forces, however, see the Bird Human as an uncontrollable liability and launch several Reaction Missiles at its current position. Sara sacrifices herself to save Shin and the rest of the Mayan island which would have been destroyed by the nuclear fallout. She makes the Bird Human create a force field that contains the force of the explosions away from the island. Because of this the Bird Human becomes critically damaged from the blasts and shoots off into space incredibly fast, in what appears to be a space fold, with Sara Nome still inside.