The Let's Play Archive

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

by nine-gear crow

Part 2: Mission 2 – Operation Harvest, October 5th, 2004

Imminent Threat

Mission 2: Operation Harvest – October 5th, 2004


Overview: A massive Erusean bomber squadron lies parked at Rigley Air Force Base south of Saint Ark in preparation for another bombing run on North Point. ISAF launches a sneak attack on Rigley, sending in Mobius 1 and his fellow pilots for a hit and fade strike on the airbase to eliminate the bombers before they become an active threat to North Point.

Meanwhile, in San Salvacion, the Storyteller Boy has a chance encounter with a famous Erusean Ace.



Guest Commentators: I am joined for this video by both Chaos Argate and Jobbo_Fett on the grounds of I’d recorded another episode of The Saboteur with them and dragged them both along for Ace Combat in retaliation.





YELLOW 13
Real Name: Dave Jordan*
Callsign(s): Yellow 13
Age: Early 30’s
Sex: Male
Nationality: Erusea
Signature Plane: Su-37 Terminator
Voice Actor: Uncredited

The captain and flight lead of the dreaded Aquila Squadron (known more informally as Yellow Squadron), and the top ace of the Federal Erusean Air Force at the outbreak of the Shattered Skies War.

A soulful, studious, and seemingly aloof man by nature, Jordan cut his teeth as a pilot in the late days of first Usean Continental War, flying clean up missions for the Erusean contingent loaned to the Allied Forces before Erusea withdrew its assets behind its borders at the end of the war. Jordan was a student of the famed Erusean ace Edgar Grint, commander of Albireo Squadron before the outbreak of the war and Grint’s death in an aerial engagement over Snider’s Top. He drew the #13 slot on Grint’s training roster and decided to keep the number for his tenure as a full-fledged FEAF pilot, considering the otherwise unlucky number a sentimental keepsake from Grint—hence why he flies as Yellow 13, rather than Yellow 1.

Following Grint's death, Jordan became a student of the famed ace Mihaly Shilage, the "King of the Skies." According to military training records, Jordan brushed his trainer aircraft against Shilage's--intentionally or not is still up for debate. Shilage was intrigued by the young pilot's maneuver and attempted to replicate the encounter to see it it was just dumb luck. Jordan was able to repeat the maneuver a second, and ultimately a third time, escaping from a direct metal-on-metal contact between fighter craft at combat speed with both craft unharmed. The display led the old master to grudgingly admit the "unlucky dumbass" rookie might be a worthy pilot after all.

As the Shattered Skies War unfurled, Jordan and his Yellow Squadron were instrumental in securing the Stonehenge Turret Network for Erusea, becoming national heroes for their exploits. Many in the Erusean military and government openly hailed Jordan as Edgar Grint’s true successor in the skies, with others still likening him to the legendary Belkan Aces of the 70s and 80s like Gen. Dietrich Kellerman and Col. Wolfgang Buchner, especially after he downed the commander of the STN Defense Squadron, Captain John Harvard.

Now that the Usean mainland is firmly under Erusean control and ISAF has been pushed back to North Point and Saint Ark, Yellow Squadron has been recalled to San Salvacion City to serve as a rapid-response interceptor flight for combat zones inside the Tango Line (Stonehenge’s maximum firing radius) and to defend Stonehenge itself if need be. It is here where he crosses paths with the Storyteller Boy. Jordan had inadvertently killed the boy’s parents when he shot down an ill-fated ISAF fighter over the San Salvacion Old Towne suburbs and that fighter crashed into his home. When the Storyteller Boy moves into the city to stay with his uncle afterward, he encounters Jordan at the Sky Kid Bar and Restaurant, which Yellow Squadron had appropriated as their ad hoc officer’s mess, having kicked out the more unruly Erusean army grunts, much to the relief of the other patrons.

Before he can confront him over the death of his parents, Jordan manages to captivate the boy with his quiet demeanor and his musical talents, playing by sheer chance his father’s favorite song, an old Sapish folk song, “Alms for the Love of God”. Utterly disarmed by a single song, and seeing a reflection of his father in Jordan, the Storyteller Boy takes his first steps into the world of Yellow 13… and Mobius 1.


There’s so much more I wish I could write for this one but we’ll just have to cover that in subsequent updates, but just keep in mind that as a character piece, Ace Combat 04 is all about Yellow 13. 13 himself was based on a German Luftwaffe pilot during World War II by the name of Hans-Joachim Marseille, who flew under the callsign “Yellow 14”. Marseille is officially cited by Project Aces as the inspiration for Yellow 13 in their art/source book ACES AT WAR: A History, and while you can read up on him on the Wikipedia page I’ve linked, given the parallels between Marseille and 13, anything else I say about the man could possibly be construed as spoilers, so I’ll just leave it here.

Now, as for the asterisk beside his name. Well, Yellow 13 has no canon name in the rest of Ace Combat lore. He is never referred to anything other than Yellow 13 in either Ace Combat 04 or any other game he is referenced in. And yet diehard fans of the series have basically appropriated the name Dave Jordan to serve as his real name, so why is that? That’s because buried in Ace Combat 04’s outdated and painfully early Aughts web design promotional site is an image showing off several pieces of Erusean Air Force and Army uniform decorations including an FEAF pilot’s name patch bearing the name of Dave Jordan. Fans have conjectured that this is Yellow 13’s real name just because it’s the shortest distance between two disparate points.

Project Aces has never come down one way or another on the matter, so it’s rife for :speculate:, as it were. For the purposes of this LP we will be treating “Dave Jordan” as Yellow 13’s real name, though for the sake of staying true to the game I will try to minimize my usage of it where I can.




ISAF AIR STRIKE TEAM
Independent States Allied Forces Air Force
Members:
AWACS Operator: SkyEye

The main thrust of ISAF's counterstrike on Erusea from this point forward will be headed by the ISAF Air Strike Team, a joint strike force comprised primarily of planes from Mobius, Halo, Viper, Rapier, and Omega Squadrons. Though the strike team is an amalgam of units stitched together from various ISAF bases and branches, it is slowly forming into a cohesive single unit with each successive deployment across Usea. The patchwork ad-hoc squadron is emblematic of ISAF's current position on the cusp of annihilation and turning to unconventional tactics for survival, and a stark contrast to Erusea's monolithic and indomitable Yellow Squadron.

Friendly radio chatter from here onward will be dominated by the likes of Omega 11, Rapier 8, and Halo 2, who will accompany Mobius 1 on missions all across the continent. These seemingly random red shirt NPC pilots ultimately left a mark on Ace Combat fans, to the point where Omega, Viper, and Rapier would appear as legacy characters in subsequent games like Ace Combat Infinity and the VR campaign of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.





Rigley AFB

Prior to the Shattered Skies War, Rigley Air Force Base served as one of ISAF’s preeminent air bases on Usea, covering the Saint Ark panhandle south to Expo City. At the outbreak of the war it became one of ISAF’s most strategic airbases, situated outside of Stongehenge’s firing range. Now, however, as it currently lies in Erusean hands, it serves as the farthest eastward frontier of Erusea’s military presence on the Usean mainland.

The Eruseans have currently parked a large squadron of Tu-95 Bear bombers at Rigley in preparation for a second strike on ISAF’s provisional GHQ in North Point City, and have also repurposed a large amount of ISAF materials left behind at Rigley when the Allied Forces abandoned it in their retreat.







Kadorhal posted:

Ace Number Two is Ciffred. Named for Jacqueline Ciffreo. Again, very little information is available about her beyond her discovery of a comet in November of 1985, now known as 108P/Ciffreo. Recent attempts to search for more info about her indicate she's dead, though that source places date of birth in 1900 and date of death in 1990, which to me sounds like it might once again be a different person.






Tracks featured in Mission 2:

DISC 1

DISC 2




The behind the scenes image I mentioned earlier showing the name “Dave Jordan”:



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