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"The world shall be horrified by the number of lives we will take. Only then will they let go of their weapons... Weapons that would have taken the lives of ten million!"
― Captain Matias Torres

Matias Torres (マティアス・トーレス Matiasu Tōresu) was a decorated former member of the Erusean Navy and captain of the submersible aviation cruiser Alicorn.

Torres boasted a long combat record with the Erusean Navy, having served in multiple conflicts on the Usean continent. He became a key figure during the Lighthouse War after rebelling against Erusea and fighting Osean forces, attempting to nuke Oured.[1]

Torres is the main antagonist of the Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown DLC missions "Unexpected Visitor", "Anchorhead Raid", and "Ten Million Relief Plan".

Biography[]

Early life[]

Torres entered the Federal Erusean Naval War College on January 4, 1991, after earning his undergraduate degree. He then enlisted with the Erusean Navy on December 15, 1994. On January 15 the following year, he earned the Four Years of Continuous Service Medal. Over the next nine years, he was assigned to different ships in the Federal Erusean Navy, including the "invincible" Aegir Fleet:[1]

  • March 1, 1996 -- reassigned to the cruiser Fenris
  • October 1, 1996 -- reassigned to the destroyer Herne
  • April 1, 1998 -- reassigned to the cruiser Fenris
  • May 1, 1999 -- reassigned to the cruiser Tethys
  • July 1, 2000 -- reassigned to the cruiser Enyo
  • June 1, 2003 -- reassigned to the battleship Tanager

On July 11, 1997, during the Usean coup d'état, the Erusean Navy awarded Torres with a medal for hitting an enemy ship 30 km (19 mi) away in the middle of a storm as the Herne's gunnery officer.[1]

On January 15, 2001, Torres was awarded the Ten Years of Continuous Service Medal.

At some point by 2003, Torres was promoted to the rank of Captain on the Enyo. He was awarded another medal on March 16, 2003 for helping to rescue the crew of a destroyer that sunk in an accident.[1]

Continental War and aftermath[]

After he was assigned to the Tanager, Torres led the vessel in combat during the Continental War. On November 23, 2004, the ISAF Air Force commenced Operation Rough Seas to destroy the Aegir Fleet. The Tanager was sunk in the battle, but Torres rescued as many sailors as he could from the sinking ship. His efforts earned him a medal on December 24 as well as the title "The Hero of Comberth Harbor" among the Erusean forces.[1]

He was reassigned to the Erusean Navy's headquarters five days after the Tanager sank and remained there until the end of the Continental War. On the day the war ended—September 19, 2005—he was reassigned to the Naval War College, likely in a leadership or instructor role. During this time, Torres earned the Sixteen Years of Continuous Service Medal two years later on January 15. He was there for five years before being placed on house arrest and losing his rank on April 8, 2010 for "disseminating dangerous ideas" at the college. On May 10 of the same year, he entered the Erusean military reserves.[1]

The Alicorn incident[]

On January 4, 2015, Torres returned to active duty. He was reappointed his rank of Captain on June 7 and reassigned as the head of the pre-commissioning crew on the submersible aviation cruiser Alicorn on December 2. The Alicorn finished outfitting and sailed out for its first sea trial on October 9, 2016 but was then accidentally ran aground on November 10, 2016. After a two year long search for the missing submarine, both Torres and the Alicorn's crew were finally found at the bottom of the sea 698 days after the initial grounding and were rescued on October 9, 2018.[1] They, along with the submarine, then transferred to the Erusean Royal Navy's reserve fleet on November 3.[4]

Lighthouse War[]

The Alicorn was not originally part of Erusea's combat doctrine for the Lighthouse War. It was officially commissioned into the Erusean Royal Navy on August 11, 2019, the day after Erusea lost the Njord Fleet in Snider's Top in a desperate attempt to plug its deficit in its naval power.[4][5]

On September 4, 2019, Torres rebelled against Erusea after being ordered to scuttle the Alicorn, disobeying orders and leaving port during Operation Sighthound. He intended to stop the war with his own extreme measures - by using Alicorn to attack Oured.[1] He ordered the submarine's crew to eliminate the incoming Osean fleet and dispatched a detachment of four aircraft from his air wing in what appeared to be an attempt to deploy a WMD, but was really just a diversion for the Alicorn to submerge safely without being pursued by Osean forces. The aircraft, meanwhile, were intercepted and shot down by the Long Range Strategic Strike Group's flight lead Trigger while escaping the area.[6]

On September 10, Torres deployed several SLUAVs towards Erusean forces and the LRSSG at Anchorhead during Operation Domino as a guided artillery fire drill for the main rail cannon, in practice for the future nuclear attack on Oured. Torres contacted his agents during the operation in order to transport the necessary nuclear shells to the submarine. Following the battle, the Alicorn docked and resupplied at the city in preparation for the attack on Oured.[1]

By September 14th, Torres moved the Alicorn into the Spring Sea and around Erusea's sound surveillance network, reaching the Azalea Seamount in the region PX80443. The Alicorn began to head west towards Peony Trench to avoid being attacked before it could fire. Torres's ultimate goal was to fire on September 19th. Victory celebrations of the Usean Continental War would be in full swing in Oured, and thus attacking on the anniversary would maximize casualties. Torres's spies in Osea deployed terminal guidance drones disguised as advertisement UAVs by the 14th.[2]

"Don't you see, Three Strikes?! Ten million lives will be saved at the cost of a mere million lives! Don't you see? Don't you see?! Landing a clean shot on a difficult target! That is what makes it elegant! That is true beauty! ... Alas, you don't see, Three Strikes! Of course you wouldn't!"
― Torres to Trigger[2]

On September 14, Osea initiated Operation Fisherman, an operation to sink the Alicorn. Osean ASW planes laid a sonobuoy barrier in front of Peony Trench, locating the Alicorn underwater. Torres had anticipated this move, however, and used jammer buoys to generate noise in the MAD's signal. Destroying the buoys would let the Oseans detect the submarine again, but doing so set off explosions underwater, generating enough underwater echoes to allow the Alicorn to escape at full speed. The sub raced for the trench, but it was quickly re-detected by a magnetic anomaly detector mounted on Trigger's plane. A task force of three Osean destroyers and a cruiser launched 4 ASROCs at the sub, damaging its ballast tanks and forcing it to surface, engaging the Osean forces.

Torres deployed every trick the Alicorn had, including its twin railguns and barrier drones, but they were all disabled by Trigger, along with the sub's ballast tanks, preventing it from diving. Additionally, David North contacted the Osean Air Defense Force and got electronic warfare aircraft over the capital, jamming the Alicorn's terminal guidance. In his most risky gambit yet, Torres faked a surrender, causing the Oseans to disengage. Torres immediately launched barrier drones to block their paths and deployed the Alicorn's rail cannon and began to manually aim the cannon in a last ditch effort to destroy Oured, but Trigger managed to weave through the barriers and throw the cannon off its intended angle just slightly with a missile, causing Torres to miss. Furious, Torres ordered the next nuclear shell to be loaded. The Alicorn's fire control systems malfunctioned, and therefore the barrel could not be adjusted manually.

As his last attempt to carry out the planned attack, Torres ordered the stern of the sub be purposefully flooded, partially sinking the Alicorn to elevate the barrel just enough to hit Oured. He then had a heated exchange with David over the radio, during which Torres revealed how in his mind the true beauty of the plan was to end a million lives with a difficult shot from beyond the horizon and how David's goal of sinking the Alicorn with all 300 hands aboard was no different to his killing of a million people. He continued to berate Trigger on how the Osean pilot could not see the beauty in his plan.

Before the cannon could fire again, however, it was destroyed by Trigger. Delusional to the end, Torres still clung on to his goal, spending his final moments laughing maniacally before the ensuing explosive chain reaction destroyed the Alicorn, killing him and ending his machinations and the threat to Oured once and for all.[2]

Character design[]

Kazutoki Kono described Torres as the "most evil" character in the Ace Combat franchise.[7] His English voice actor, Armen Taylor, explained that lines such as his "crisp white sheets" line from "Unexpected Visitor" were in the audition and helped him "[peek] inside Torres' mind."[8]

Gallery[]

References[]

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