This page contains a transcript of "444th Air Base", the third cutscene in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. Both this and the previous cutscene, "This Means War", immediately play before starting "Charge the Enemy" during a campaign run.
Transcript[]
Avril Mead (narrating): The world was screwed. Twenty years ago...the Earth got slammed by an asteroid. Usea was on the wrong side of the planet and got hit. Hard. Refugees swarmed the Erusean Republic, the biggest country on the continent, plunging it into chaos. They were desperate and started a war...one they had no hope of winning. That's the war my dad fought and died in.[note 1] The biggest nations from two continents went head-to-head and the so-called righteous Oseans struck the deal that ended it. They fancied themselves the only nation that could bring peace and stability to the world. They even tried saving the Useans, still suffering from the disaster. That's how a space elevator, stretching way up into the sky, ended up being built in Usea... Paid for by the Oseans. President Harling said he did it out of compassion for his fellow humans. But to the folks in Erusea, it looked like Osea was moving in to take over. Erusea went from being a republic, back to being a kingdom. When they started this new war, they managed to get the drop on everyone. The second the declaration hit the news, Erusean forces took control of the space elevator without spilling a single drop of blood. President Harling was touring the elevator when it happened and disappeared. Then...while that was going on, the Erusean ships that were docked all around Osea released a swarm of drone fighters they had hidden onboard in containers. No one thought they were capable of doing what they did that day. With pinpoint accuracy, they managed to take out everything that was military. And not a single civilian was hurt in the process. Osea pissed lots of people off with their huge military presence around the world. Erusea didn't have the same reach, but they could hit their targets faster and cleaner. And while all of this was going down, I just so happened to be in my flying drag racer. In case you were wondering, yeah...I survived. I crashed in a bombed out Osean Air Force base. Then, got arrested for breaking wartime aviation laws or some crap. The world went from being at peace...to being at war. All in the blink of an eye...
Rosa Cossette D'Elise (on radio): I am Princess Rosa Cossette D'Elise of the Kingdom of Erusea. Today, Osean airstrikes have shattered the lives of countless Eruseans. Their attacks practically leveled the school I went to. It is heartbreaking... Tragic.
Avril Mead (narrating): I was tried, found guilty, and stuffed into a cargo ship. For company, I had some court-martialed soldiers. And remember those mothballed planes I told you about before? They were loaded on the ship too. We headed off down South for several days and then swung East. That's how I got here. I was thousands of kilometers from Erusea on the opposite side of the Usean continent. For a port, it was dull as hell. It had three rusty patrol boats. And the base? The fences were topped with razor wire, the tower had a searchlight and machine guns, and a truck with a gun turret was parked in front of the gate. Its gun was aimed at the yard. This...was a prison. This place looked like a full-on base. But half the tanker trucks were just big balloons. And the runways weren't even paved...just painted on the dirt. The whole place was just one big, fat lie. The only reason I was here, is 'cuz they knew I'd restored a supersonic plane. They wanted me to make something out of the mothballed planes they brought, that they could park on the fake runway. Can you believe that shit? So, I tried to escape. They found out...and set the dogs on me.
Footnotes[]
- ↑ For unknown reasons, Avril implies that her father died in the Continental War, which contradicts her next sentence referring to "two continents" and Osea's involvement. Brand director Kazutoki Kono and producer Manabu Shimomoto confirmed that her father died in the Circum-Pacific War,[1] which fits Avril's next sentence.