History Fridge / AceCombat7SkiesUnknown

** That the sinking of the ''Tanager'' [[ButForMeItWasTuesday wasn't even that big a deal]] from Mobius 1's perspective (we get maybe one or two lines about it on radio chatter) makes you wonder if anyone else we shot down over the course of the series could have snapped and turned into a supervillain like Torres did.

** Captain Matias Torres might be hilarious with his ramblings about salvation, his tantrum comparing Trigger sabotaging his plans to him putting his dirty shoes in his bed made with "[[MemeticMutation Crisp! White! Sheets!]]" and his bursts of EvilLaugh, but the man has '''issues'''. Aside from his plans to [[spoiler:fire tacnukes on Oured to terrify Osea and Erusea to stop the Lighthouse War]] and gleefully sending his men to death, who agree with him so much that they behave more like cultists than anything, there's his past. First, after all his efforts and recommandations who net him several medals and the command of the flagship of the Erusean Aegir Fleet, he gets a front seat during [[VideoGame/AceCombat04ShatteredSkies Operation Rough Seas]] where Mobius 1 singlehandedly sinks his ship, the whole fleet and wrecks the whole harbor. While he manages to save most of his crew and gets a new job as a navy instructor, he gets so broken that he later gets arrested for "disseminating dangerous ideas" during his lectures (mostly about death and destruction), but is rehabilitated and put at the helm of the ''Alicorn'', the new super-submarine of Erusea that dwarfs even the ''Scinfaxi'' and ''Hrimfaxi''. Said submarine runs aground on her sea trial and stays at the bottom of the sea for ''two whole years'' before emerging... And when she comes back, 30 sailors are dead and the crew has turned into Torres' undyingly loyal cult, willing to feed false intel to the highest Osean officers, throw their lives at Trigger (a pilot even better than Mobius 1) and raze a capital city to bring "salvation" to the world. What exactly happened in the ''Alicorn''?

* "When history witnesses a great change, Razgriz reveals itself... first, as a dark demon. As a demon, it uses its power to rain death upon the land, and then it dies. However, after a period of slumber, Razgriz returns, this time, as a great hero." [[spoiler: Stonehenge rained death upon the land, slumbered for over a decade, and then returned to destroy the Arsenal Bird.]]

** Of course, if the asteroid hadn't knocked out the 8th gun, it's debatable if the Continental War would've happened - the gun is aimed towards Farbanti, and the asteroid fragment hitting it stopped it from firing and shooting down the fragment that put part of the Erusean capital underwater. Erusea's only reason for starting the war was because everyone else was looking to them to do something about the wave of refugees when it seemed that Erusea was the country hit hardest by Ulysses. If the 8th gun wasn't hit, or managed to fire before it was hit, it's possible Erusea would've been in a better position and might not have had to take desperate actions due to economic sanctions due to not taking in the refugees as a result of their capital their most populated city being directly hit.

* It confused me a bit at first as to why clouds would hinder your missiles tracking when radar sees through clouds just fine. but then i realized something, your standard missiles are generally modeled after various countries short range secondary missiles which primarily use Infrared (heat seeking) and clouds block that pretty well.

* In Mission 20, why do Hugin and Munin stay close to the space elevator, when they can easily annihilate the ''Admiral Andersen'', which is floating not too far away and is a potential threat? Both AIs have likely analyzed the situation, prioritizing transmitting their data and adopt a defensive posture, as until they can transmit via the space elevator and have more drones manufactured, they are vulnerable (being the only two of their type made with the flight data gathered) and are smart enough not to risk themselves by attacking a carrier and a numerically superior force that may potentially have the means to repel, damage and destroy them. Basically their directives could be interpreted as this:

<<DIRECTIVE 3: ENSURE SUCCESSFUL TRANSMISSION OF FLIGHT DATA

* Erusea relying on drones to supplement their air force makes sense; their quite substantial air force was absolutely decimated by ISAF in the last Continental War of 2003-2005, and while they were able to restore their air power somewhat, as well as their ground forces, the implied shortage of pilots means the Eruseans had to turn to drones and converted drone fighters to fill in the holes. In fact, post Battle of Farbanti, it's heavily implied that there are an equal number of Erusean manned fighters and drone pilots. By the Battle of the Lighthouse, the only manned fighters are higher-end planes like Su-57s, Su-35S and F-22As, who essentially lead lower-tier fighters (F/A-18Fs

* In Mission 20, why do Hugin and Munin stay close to the space elevator, when they can easily annihilate the ''Admiral Andersen'', which is floating not too far away and is a potential threat? Both AIs have likely analyzed the situation, prioritizing transmitting their data and adopt a defensive posture, as until they can transmit via the space elevator and have more drones manufactured, they are vulnerable (being the only two made with the flight data gathered) and are smart enough not to risk themselves by attacking a carrier and a numerically superior force that may potentially have the means to repel, damage and destroy them.

** 4. Since Stonehenge is aiming horizontally, rather than vertically towards space (as its original design dictated), a method to account for curvature of the Earth and gravity's effects on the projectiles had to be implemented. Stonehenge's maximum range is stated to be 600 miles, beyond that gravity and curvature (Stonehenge is a combination chemical/railgun system, firing conventional projectiles assisted by electromagnetic propulsion, which limits their effective range) will result in missed shots.
* The Arsenal Bird, while serving as a design successor to the Arkbird, also incorporates defenses that seem to be a sort of "lessons learned" from the Arkbird's hijacking and destruction.
** Arkbird is manned by a crew and gets hijacked? Make the Arsenal Bird autonomous, meaning unless an enemy force can capture its control center (which unfortunately does happen), there's no way of taking it over and no crew rotations are necessary; the Arsenal Bird can loiter indefinitely.

** An attacker closes in, and stands to destroy them? The Arkbird had no shields, the Arsenal Bird incorporates microwave shielding, making it impervious to almost all projectiles.

* Erusea declares war against Osea, who is a superpower and has an impressive naval force (though it is technically a Maritime Defense Force, limiting its ability to project power around the world). So how does Erusea even the odds? They ship MQ-99s in containers to ports all over Osea, and proceed to remote launch them from their containers before Osean customs inspectors can get near the containers. The drones then spread out across the country, evading Osean air defenses due to their maneuverability and small size, and precisely strike multiple naval bases, crippling Osea's naval power and ensuring that Osea can't bring its substantial naval forces to bear against Erusea. It's basically the Pearl Harbor attack taken UpToEleven, and successful (excluding the carrier Admiral Andersen, which was left unmolested even after getting stuck on a reef). Several other carriers also survived due to being at sea, such as the Vulture and Kestrel II, but they are quickly sunk in the early days of the war.
* Erusea relying on drones to supplement their air force makes sense; their air force was absolutely decimated by ISAF in the last Continental War of 2003-2005, and while they were able to restore their air power somewhat, as well as their ground forces, the implied shortage of pilots means the Eruseans had to turn to drones and converted drone fighters to fill in the holes. In fact, post Battle of Farbanti, it's heavily implied that the bulk of enemy Erusean fighters are these converted drone fighters.

** In fact, its heavily implied that the Erusean bombers are comprised of equal parts manned and retrofitted drone bombers. While radio chatter can be heard coming from certain bombers, some remain completely silent, yet always have escort fighters nearby. It is very likely that the older Erusean Tu-95 bombers are conventionally manned (their age and older electronics likely making it more difficult to retrofit into an effective autonomous platform) whilst the newer Tu-160 bombers are converted to be autonomous, with manned aircraft escorting them in slave mode.

* At first, Tabloid's reason for being in Spare seems like a FelonyMisdemeanor, throwing a rock at a building and protesting government policy aren't on the same level as murder or fraud after all. However, his anarchism goes straight into [[VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar A World With No Boundaries]] rhetoric. During "Pipeline Destruction" he attributes wars occurring to countries existing, and the mass groans and "here he goes again" reaction from the rest of Spare demonstrates that this isn't an isolated incident. In other words he is blatantly spouting the ideology of a terrorist organization/death cult that is publicly known for attempting nuclear attacks. While he likely doesn't share their violent methods, spreading such rhetoric is a far more serious offense.

*** That's actually a fair point, to be honest. It ties closely into the CentralTheme of knowing who is friend and who is foe, since it shows how truly vulnerable a world dependent on the flow of information can be, when all you need to do to turn it upside down is cut the flow and feed a few lies into the right place.

** Erusea’s ground forces also took a heavy toll in the Usean Continental war, yet they still have a large contingent of tanks. The answer is quite simple, they adapted the drone program to
their ground forces. More than likely, a majority of Erusea’s tanks are AI controlled drones, with a few manned tanks to keep the rest in line.