Zone of Endless, sometimes shortened to Z.O.E., is a supporting antagonist in the Ace Combat series, serving as a minor antagonist in Ace Combat 2, a major antagonist in its remake Ace Combat: Assault Horizon Legacy, and a minor antagonist in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. It is an artificial intelligence program created by Gründer Industries to serve as a pilot for fighter jets. It first saw combat during the 1997-1998 Usean coup d'etat, and paved way to mass production of unmanned aerial vehicles by Gründer. Z.O.E. was later tested and used in the 2019 Lighthouse War, but with consequences not even its creators could have foreseen.
Biography[]
Past[]
Shorty after the end of the Belkan War, the Belkan company Gründer Industries began developing the Zone of Endless as a replacement for human pilots, due to Belka running low on manpower after its defeat. Eventually, the Z.O.E. program was installed into five unmanned aircraft: F-14D Super Tomcat, F/A-18E Super Hornet, YF-23 Black Widow II, F-15 S/MTD and ADF-01 FALKEN, and subsequently delivered in secrecy to Usea to assist rebel forces who had staged a coup d'etat on the continent.
Ace Combat 2/Assault Horizon Legacy[]
During the battle of Meriton, Phoenix, a mercenary pilot fighting for Usean Allied Forces, encountered the Z.O.E.-controlled F-14D, codenamed Captain, and engaged it in a dogfight. After sustaining damage, the drone retreated. Zone of Endless would later confront Phoenix with an F/A-18E, codenamed Major, over the Skully Islands, but would be once again forced to retreat. While Phoenix was helping the Pennant Squadron escape a rebel ambush, Z.O.E. itself ambushed them in a YF-23, codenamed Colonel, shooting down one plane but getting its own plane destroyed by Phoenix. The AI and the mercenary clashed once again during the battle for St. Ark, where Phoenix shot Z.O.E.'s F-15 S/MTD, codenamed General. Finally, during the raid on the rebels' last stronghold, Fortress Intolerance, Zone of Endless ambushed Phoenix with its most advanced aircraft, ADF-01, codenamed Commander, but was defeated by the skilled pilot once again, this time for good. During each of these encounters, Z.O.E. would analyze its enemy's actions and mimic them in later fights.
Skies Unknown[]
The Zone of Endless project would be continued by Dr. Schroeder. The next time the Z.O.E. drones were used in battle would be the Lighthouse War, fighting on Erusea's side. This time, they were deployed in huge numbers at a time, and the basis for their technique were the skills of an Erusean ace, Mihaly A. Shilage. One of the Z.O.E.-controlled ADFX-10 drones was intercepted by the Osean pilots during its test flight and, while escaping them, engaged Trigger of the Spare Squadron and was shot down by him.
As the war neared its end, Doctor Shroeder attempted to upload Mihaly's flight data into two freshly-made ADF-11 drones, codenamed "Hugin" and "Munin", but the pilot's granddaughter Ionela, mad at the doctor for disregarding her grandfather's health issues, destroyed the drive containing the data. This didn't matter much, however, as the data had already been uploaded into the drones. Although the drone production facility was cut from power and destroyed by Osean soldiers, Princess of Erusea and the remorseful Schroeder, Hugin and Munin managed to take off and attack the planes belonging to Osea and Erusean conservative forces.
With Erusean radicals surrendered and thus noone left to issue orders to them, the drones attempted to use the space elevator where the facility was stored to send their data to production facilities all over the continent, which would lead to the creation of more drones in their image and the war lasting much longer, possibly forever. Several Osean and Erusean pilots, Trigger among them, were sent to destroy the rogue drones. One of them was shot down, but the other attempted to escape inside the elevator. Trigger and Count pursued and destroyed it before it could upload its data. It's presumed that after Hugin and Munin's destruction, the Zone of Endless project was shut down for good.
Non-canon appearances[]
Skies of Deception[]
In this game, Zone of Endless plays no role in the plot, but appears as one of the enemies in a bonus mission "Operation X", piloting its signature ADF-01 FALKEN.
Joint Assault[]
Similar to Skies of Deception, Z.O.E. appears as an enemy in two bonus missions, "Operation X" and "Ace of Aces", piloting an ADF-01 in both of them.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Zone of Endless is the first artificial intelligence to be featured in the Ace Combat series, first appearing in the 1997 title Ace Combat 2. However, it was revealed to be an AI much later, in a description of its aircraft in the non-canon game Ace Combat Infinity, after it was implied to be such in Assault Horizon Legacy.
- Other than piloting unmanned aircraft, Z.O.E. serves as a co-pilot substitute in the ADF-01 FALKEN plane, serving as the pilot's "eyes" due to the aircraft having no windows to observe surroundings.
- Despite having no official gender, Z.O.E. is referred to with female pronouns ("her") in the description of its YF-23 from Infinity.
- Theodor Sander, a Belkan War veteran said to be developing AI technology for Gründer Industries, is heavily implied to have either created or worked on Z.O.E.
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 Villains
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Strangereal Joint Assault Assault Horizon Infinity | ||