What is true happiness?
What is the truth?
What is reality?
But even more importantly...
Yet, what is a nation?
The concept of a nation has been featured countless times in the Ace Combat series.
Games set in both Strangereal and Earth have challenged players to define what nations
are and what their meaning is.
Chronologically first in Strangereal, and the game with the most focus on this topic
is Ace Combat Zero.
The Belkan War began purely due to economic reasons but when the allies started advancing
into Belkan territory things got a bit out of hands....
...If a country values one of its regions more than the other and is able to make this
kinds of “sacrifice”, then is it really a country?
Thoughts like this and the horror of the war, such as the bombing of Hoffnung, gave the
birth to a new organization with the goal of stopping all wars.
They did not want to see these imaginary lines dividing imaginary regions called nations
because the fundamental question here is “what is a nation”?
When asked this question, former Belkan Air Force pilot and now a history professor at
the University of Dinsmark, Detlef Fleisher said:
A nation is comprised of the individuals who live in its borders.
It can only become a nation when it is supported by those individuals.
The history surrounding the war and the events after the Belkan War is filled by terms such
as “nations”, “borders” and “nationalities”.
Aren’t borders just imaginary lines dividing different people?
- If so why is the true horror of wars based on these imaginary concepts?
It was because of this train of thought that a new organization rose from the ashes of
the war – A World With No Boundaries.
Their goal was to liberate territories, peoples and authorities with the power of righteousness
by erasing these unnecessary borders.
They were aiming to reset the twisted game humanity had started, because after all, what
has borders given us if not just chaos and destruction?
Fortunately or unfortunately for Strangereal, they failed in their mission due to an unknown mercenary.
That’s right, a mercenary – exactly what they were fighting for, an individual with
no allegiance to borders, an individual with no honour to a specific country because...
(But) mercenaries who cross lines and allegiance for money have no country to protect.
They only fight for their own power and fame.
Ace Combat Zero was heavily focused on this topic but it wasn’t the only game of the
series to do so.
The Second Usean Continental War from Ace Combat 4 was also based on borders.
After the Ulysses disaster, refugees kept coming and coming to Erusea but that was until
its government refused their entry – then again a move in order to protect its “borders”,
to protect its people and its economy from outsiders.
The fundamental roots of the war came from the allied countries who kept on forcing Erusea
to accept refugees and therefore not respecting its borders.
This topic was mentioned once more in Ace Combat Joint Assault, as the reason behind
the actions of the terrorist group “Valahia” whose goal was not to destroy nations, but
rather create its own based on its ideology.
In the last century many of the communist countries in which we believed, feel into decline,
and the world became one of capitalism.
But thanks to the greedy swines bred by this very system…
The once sweet fruit of capitalism is now rotten to the core.
It has reached the end of its time.
Let me ask you. Are you honestly fulfilled and prospering?
I do not think so.
Look hard at the truth, look through the fabricated capitalist illusions!
We are prepared to sacrifice everything to establish a nation of our own.
The nuclear warheads and ICBMs now under our control should be more than enough to prove our resolve.
It is with great pleasure that I declare the creation of our new nation by our hands!
Dissidents will be consumed by flame, as we march toward the birth of a nation!
In the end Valahia’s plan didn’t work too well but they did get their point across,
like Pixy would say, “You gotta fight for what you believe in!”
Finally, this topic was also mentioned in Ace Combat Infinity with the nation of Usea,
a nation formed by refugees of the Ulysses disaster.
Twenty years after the Ulysses disaster, our refugees have faced untold pain and suffering.
Even now, the fragments of Ulysses still lurk near our planet, in the form of near-Earth objects.
There is every chance that could rain down upon us again in the future,
thus repeating the tragedy of Ulysses.
All of mankind must come together now to deal with this crisis, and yet, for the past twenty
years, the United Nations has been weakened by the great and powerful nations of the world.
To deal with this sad state of affairs, we, the so-called “lost generation” of young
refugees, must create a new order to replace the ailing UN.
We must form a new, powerful, united front to save our planet from oblivion.
So as you’ve seen, the importance of nations isn’t just a topic related to Ace Combat 7,
this question has been featured in many other Ace Combat games like Ace Combat 3 where
one of the main themes is that lack of powerful nations since the world is ruled by corporations
and you could even argue that this was a minor topic in Ace Combat Assault Horizon with the
New Russian Federation by like many other things related to Assault Horizon – just
don’t talk about it, it was a dark chapter in the Ace Combat history and the topic wasn’t
really addressed as it should while it did have some potential.
Now for the upcoming Ace Combat 7, we know that nations, or their definition,
will play a key role in the story of the game we just don’t know how.
I am interested to see a different perspective about the topic this time, but for now all
we can do is wait for the answer to
“yet wwhat is a nation?”