Hello Aces, Ace Combat Fan speaking here and today is time for another Ace Combat 7 theory video!
This time I would like to talk about the Trigger Squadron - which looks like it’s going to
be our protagonist squadron in Ace Combat 7 and also about the white marks featured on the aircraft
in the second trailer.
I think that the Trigger Squadron, which belongs to the Osean Air Defense Force, will be made
up of prisoner or convict pilots that are POSSIBLY Erusian citizens.
But before we get into the theory part, let’s take a look at some very specific parts of the trailer.
The first point I would like to mention is this scene of the second trailer where we
have the three prisoners walking.
First, we see the prisoner girl – and I will keep calling her like that
in the video – she is walking dressed up in the orange-prisoner uniform and it seems like
she has some kind of leg injury.
Behind her are two more prisoners but interestingly they are not wearing the orange prisoner uniforms,
instead they are wearing something that looks like a flight suit.
Moving on to this conversation scene, we have this guy who is wearing a flight suit and
wears the orange thing on his arm with the number 44.
Another hint from the trailer is the audio that says
"Cool it convicts, I decide whether you live or die."
Then later we see the prisoner girl in her cell and right after we see her walking around
the F-15 without one of the tails.
This F-15 with the missing tail could be a reference to Pixy from Ace Combat Zero given
that he managed to fly his F-15 without one of the wings
- which explains why the wing was painted red on his aircraft.
This could help explain why the tails of the Osean aircraft are painted - something having
to do with this damaged F-15.
So meaning that this F-15 will be very important in the story.
What could explain the damage to this F-15 are the following two parts of the trailer.
We can easily note that the F-15 is being trailed by an enemy that looks like the Sukhoi-30SM
painted in the new Erusian paint scheme, indicating that MAYBE the F-15 was being trailed by no one
other than Minaly.
Although losing one tails, the F-15 then managed to either come back to base or flee from wherever it was coming from.
Now coming back the Trigger squadron theory it is very clear that the members of the squadron,
or the pilots that is, are prisoners.
Another supporting fact is the logo of the Trigger Squadron as it was re-drawn by my
friend Rythus Omega by looking at video footage and screenshots of the game.
The dog seems to have that scarf that I think it symbolizes a dog leash,
adding to that the color of the scarf is also orange, the same color of the prisoners' uniform.
Using prisoners as members of the military is an old practice that was very common centuries
ago but not anymore nowadays.
Some very notable examples can be found
in the Second World War with Germany's Strafbattalions (penal battalion) and the Soviet Union's Shtrafbat.
There are many advantages of having prisoners in the armed forces including having expendable
soldiers that could deployed in high-risk mission such as clearing minefields, being
the first wave of attack or defending positions against overwhelming enemy forces.
Adding to that, prisoners are a good option to fill up a country's military if the number
of volunteers is low.
The problem with these advantages is that they don't apply much nowadays because modern
military service requires more discipline, knowledge and skill - now more than ever.
Military equipment can easily cost up to millions of dollars and members of the military in
certain positions, such as a pilot, can cause a lot of damage just by themselves - also,
would you trust a criminal with expensive and powerful military hardware? I don't think so.
So here comes my theory that could work in Ace Combat, but probably not in real life.
Somehow the Osean military is able to control or ensure that the prisoners will always
follow their orders and I see two options for that:
either the criminals were brainwashed
into fighting or, and the option I support, they are having their life threatened if they
don't follow the orders.
This reminds me of the Japanese movie Battle Royale
(which is the original and much better version of the Hunger Games by the way).
In Battle Royale, a militaristic Japanese government puts high school students together in an island
and they're forced to fight against each other until there is only one remaining.
The way the military is able to convince these students to fight is by putting a necklace
on them and so if they don't follow the rules of the survival game the necklace explodes
and they die.
Now coming back to Ace Combat, if a remotely controlled explosive could be placed on either
the pilot's flight suit or ejection seat that would leave the pilot with no other choice
other than following the orders from the military.
So according to this theory, at least with what I've explained so far, it would be possible
for the Osean military to use prisoners as pilots in the Air Force, but who would these prisoners be?
With what we know about the game so far I support the idea that Trigger Squadron is
actually made up of Erusian military pilots that were either captured or defected.
I came to this idea because it's hard for me to imagine that Osea is going to use its own prisoners
- not to mention the time and money they would have to spend training their own prisoners into fighter pilots
if they didn't have previous experience.
Erusians on the other hand would make much better candidates as they could have been captured
after the declaration of war.
Another possible theory is that some of them didn't like what the Erusian military was
doing (such as declaring war to Osea for whatever reason) and chose to defect and fight against
their country's military because they think Erusia would be fighting for an unjust cause.
As mentioned I mentioned in another video, the prisoner girl could be the astronaut from
the first trailer (which would explain her leg injury after she fell from the space
elevator and had a bad landing with her parachute) or she could also have been
the pilot in the F-15 that was being chased by the Erusian Sukhoi-30.
The other pilots could also have been captured by Osea in the early stages of the war as
we can see in the demo gameplay of Ace Combat 7.
My last point on this theory is the interview that Ace Combat producer, Kazutoki Kono gave - he mentioned that
in Ace Combat 7 we would be able to see the two sides of the war - just like we did in Ace Combat 4
where you can see Mobius 1's point of view and the Yellow Squadron's point of view as
seen by the storyteller boy who links the two point of views.
Having Erusian pilots forming the Trigger Squadron would help establish the link
between the Osea and the Erusian point of views during Ace Combat 7.
So this is my theory on the Trigger Squadron, but keep in mind this is just a theory,
I might be right or wrong, either completely or partially.
What does matter to me isn't seeing the result when Ace Combat 7 gets released
but rather just have fun of thinking how it could be.
I hope you've enjoyed this theory and if there's anything that I didn't talk about please mention
in the comments together with what you think.
This was Ace Combat Fan and stay tuned for more Ace Combat!