Spiridus

"Show them the power of the Spiridus. Ready the main cannon!"

- Original Spiridus commander

The Spiridus (スピリダス Supiridasu) is a bi-wing airborne fortress featured in Ace Combat: Joint Assault. It is the Valahia's main trump card.

Tokyo invasion
The Spiridus was first deployed in the Valahia's initial assault of Tokyo in November 15. The hulk began its attack on the city by firing its Balaur railgun, tearing a massive hole in Tokyo Bay. Soon thereafter, Martinez Security's Antares and Rigel Squadrons arrived to the area, and assisted by the JSDF, fought off the Valahia's attack. Thanks to an structural analysis, they were able to exploit an inherent weakness in the airship's design; as the Balaur recharged, the PMCs managed to destroy the Spiridus's rear heat vent, causing the Balaur's fire control system to go offline, forcing the ship to flee from Tokyo, leaving the PMCs to deal with the secondary air force.

Two months after the Tokyo incident, the Spiridus was sighted flying over the Nile River region of Egypt. Subsequent searches did not find any traces of the ship's presence, instead revealing a Valahia base set along the river.

London assault
The Spiridus remained out of the spotlight until March 21, where it spearheaded the Valahia's promised assault of London. Antares Squadron was dispatched to the city to destroy the airship once and for all. By the time they got there, the Spiridus revealed a brand new weapon called "electrolaser cannon", an energy weapon using ionised air as a means to use concentrared high voltage discharges. Despite its power, the AG cannons was eventually overpowered by the Antares. The commander, probably becoming desperate, decided to unleash its AA weapons and its ultimate AA defence: an AA electrolaser cannon. However, its fire control units were rendered useless, leaving the AA cannon to defend the dying ship. The ship, at the moment in time, had sustained severe damage, leaving the cannon itself defenceless against external attacks. Antares destroyed the cannon while avoiding the cannons fire, dealing the final blow that would doom the ship. The destruction of its AA weapons and the final cannon damaged the Spiridus beyond its limits, killing the ship's main engines and setting the ship's fuel tanks on fire. Seeing that the ship was doomed, the captain ordered to fire the Balaur at the capitol building (presumed to be the Westminister Palace), however the ship began falling towards the city, safely crashlanding in the River Thames.

Spiridus II
A second Spiridus, unofficially named "Spiridus II", was built by the Golden Axe Plan Private Army in their preparations to attack San Francisco in the final stage of the Golden Axe Plan. The ship was hidden in Lake Tahoe, while the main ground force was stationed at an old airport at Sierra Nevada. Now operating outside the IUPF's jurisdiction, Antares Squadron intercepted the Spiridus II over Tahoe. This model has several design differences with the original Spiridus, such as the capability to launch Hi-TASM thermobaric missiles, a unique "READS" electromagnetic shield protecting the ship's upper hull from enemy fire and plasma countermeasures to defend itself from enemy missile attacks. During their battle, Antares was assisted by Martinez ground forces, who launched ballistic missile attacks on the Spiridus from Nevada, knocking out the READS and giving the pilots a chance to destroy the Hi-TASM launch ports, thus saving the friendly ground troops.

The ship's READS shield and Hi-TASM ports were eventually destroyed, forcing the ship to retreat west as it deployed IRCMs and electrolaser systems. Both systems were destroyed, and the ship was finally brought down with a final missile attack, causing it to lose control and crash into Tahoe, thus removing the threat of the Spiridus for good.

Design
This fortress is the main weapon of the insurgent group Valahia, and has a sister ship, the lightly-armed Orgoi. It was shot down over London, but the Golden Axe Plan Private Army rebuilt it near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It had a minor weapons improvement, such as IRCM spheres (identical in function to the High-Powered Microwave of Skies of Deception), Hi-TASM missiles tested over the Adriatic Sea, and READS, a force shield around the Hi-TASM launchers that effectively defended against everything except ballistic missiles. It was also shot down.

Weapons of this aerial fortress include an aerial version of the Balaur cannon, three air to ground Electrolaser cannons, 1 Anti-aircraft Electrolaser cannon, Hi-TASMs (on the Spiridus II), conventional AAA, AA guns, AAMs, and a unique IRCM (mounted on the Balaur II) which jams missile and can apparently do damage in the same manner as the HPM mounted on Fenrir and Archelon Fortress in Ace Combat X.

The second Spiridus was also equipped with a defense system which emitted waves of electromagnetic radiation to deter missiles and bullets from the launch ports of the Hi-TASM known as READS, a large enough missile however, such as the ones launched by the ground forces in Nevada, can temporarily knock out READS, giving a pilot the chance to attack the Hi-TASM launch ports.

Details

 * Weight: Unknown.
 * Power plant: Unknown, possibly nuclear power.
 * Height: Unknown.
 * Length: Unknown.
 * Wingspan: Unknown.
 * Range: Unknown.
 * Date Created: Unknown.
 * Date Destroyed: 21 March 20XX (Spiridus I), June 20, 20XX (Spiridus II)

Trivia

 * The player battles a total of two Spiridus in the game.
 * The Spiridus bears a striking similarity to Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere's X-49 Night Raven. This can be explained by the fact that the game's design director was also the one from AC3.
 * The Spiridus is the airborne fortress with the highest number of weapons in the series, with a total of five. By comparison, the Gleipnir has two.
 * The Spiridus I's descent into the River Thames is quite reminiscent of the Gleipnir's crashlandng in the Santa Elva river in Ace Combat X.
 * The word 'Spiridus' (read 'Spi-ri-dus') means Goblin or Fairy in Romanian.
 * The Spiridus is only out one of two airborne fortresses able to do VTOL flying.