Interlude 01

Larry Foulke is savouring a cup of Darjeeling in an armchair, and is reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" with leisureliness. On the table there are a 1:150 model of XFA-27, a 1:150 model of X-02 Wyvern, a 1:150 model of X-02 Strike Wyvern, and a teapot.

Alarm clock (build-in inside his cellphone) rings, he switches it off, turns to camera: "Welcome back to teletorium, this time let's discuss something about XFA-27 and X-02 Wyvern variants."

(voice over)

In late 80's of twentieth century, Federal Republic of Erusea started a heavily-invested project, many organizations were involved, and Erusean Aeronautics and Space Administration was assigned to lead them. The objective of this project was to research and develop a superfighter which would be better than any fifth-generation fighters. Soon, intelligence department of Republic of North Point acknowledged what Erusea was up to (a project with so many people and groups take parts would be easy to be noticed and infiltrated) and launched their own R&D project as a "tit-for-tat".

Following discovery of Ulysses 1994XF04 Asteroid, both countries halted their projects and re-allocated resources to contribute in efforts of countering the impending impact. North Point had already produced a working prototype by that time, designated as "XFA-27", and it was considered as one of the most advanced fighters during that time. Featuring controllable three-surface aerodynamic layout, variable backward swept main wings, 360-degree thrust-vectoring technology, and an unique design of X-tail quadruple empennage, XFA-27's performance is way beyond any fifth-generation fighters like F-22A, Su-57 and J-20 both on overall rating and on monomial ratings.

In early 1997, seizing the chance of leaders from all Usean nations gathered in North Point to discuss issues regarding Ulysses 1994XF04 Asteroid. A group of high-ranking military officers suddenly rose in revolt, simultaneously started full-scale coup d'etat across Usean Continent, known as "Usean Rebellion" or "First Usean Continental War". Rebel forces, or so-called "Usean Unified Force", held all government leaders as hostages, and confiscated the XFA-27 alone with associated data, weaponized it to battlefield.

Entire eastern half and large portion of western half of Usean Continent fell into rebels' hands. Usean Allied Force retreated into territories of Erusea to continue their fighting, and as a move of desperation, they initiated "Operation Fighter's Honor", recruiting mercenary pilots from entire planet to assist them to turn the tide. Soon, under the lead of legendary ace "Scarface One", aka "Phoenix", remaining Usean Allied Force began to beat rebels back and gradually reclaimed lost territories. On September 18th 1997, final battle unfolded within vicinity of Stronghold Intolerance, Scarface One was the spearhead of attack. Result of final battle was the complete destruction of rebel forces and detention of its leaders. XFA-27 prototype was destroyed by Scarface One in an one-on-one dogfight, however relating data went missing and were never recovered. It was rumored Scarface One beat Usean Allied Force to retrieve the highly prized data. In following major wars on Planet Strangereal, rumors of sighting this mysterious superfighter rise again and again, many people speculate that Scarface One had constructed at least one XFA-27 unit by utilizing its data, and are manipulating trends of those wars.

After conclusion of First Usean Continental War, Federal Republic of Erusea, as primary base area for counter-offensives against rebels, received enormous sum of monetary and material compensations, therefore its economic, politic and military strength were significantly amplified. Although opposition between eastern and western factions subsided as the common threat posed by incoming Ulysses 1994XF04 Asteroid, but seeds of another war had been sowed.

Impact of the asteroid threw all nations in Usean Continent into dire conditions, and refugee problem added more woes to them. Minus those who had fled to Osean Continent and Verusan Continent pre-impact, there were still dozens of millions of refugees remained. Some countries such as Republic of North Point took in as many refugees as possible, but Federal Republic of Erusea, acted very passively. Eastern nations banded together to pressurize Erusea for accepting more refugees, Erusea undoubtedly opposed such move and kept quarantining borders. Incalculable refugees were stranded and were suffering severely insufficient food, water, medic, clothing, housing and other supplies.

Without other choices, eastern nations began to relocate those refugees rejected by Erusea, and simultaneously initiated a general boycott to Erusian products. This strategy worsened the already-not-so-good economy, triggered social unrest. The country was enraged, its military quickly expanded influence throughout entire territory, taking over government, prepare to prove that eastern nations had chosen a wrong subject to mess with.

Decision made, Erusea was militarizing itself. Suspended R&D project of superfighter was revived, however fell underfunded not only for all-out war against east was consuming resource severely, more because seizing of Stonehenge rendered it "not so necessary". Nevertheless, Erusea did make progresses on making new superfighter, the first working prototype "X-02 Wyvern" was sighted in combat for the first time on March 14th 2004, over shore of Cascade Ocean, during Operation Aurora, operated by Federal Erusea Air Force's most decorated ace pilot, Yellow Thirteen.

Compare with XFA-27, X-02 Wyvern processes a much more curvilinear, streamlined silhouette, its most significant trait is the unique foldable forward swept main wings, nicknamed "switch blades", they fold like large traditional backward swept wing to minimize air resistance when the aircraft flies fast, subsequently extend to resume their signature forward swept shapes as the aircraft flies slow or does high-g maneuvers, in order to maximize deceleration or provide maximum maneuverability, also to compensate elevating force. All these features, plus the more advanced, integrated 360-degree thrust-vectoring technology, bestow X-02 even better ratings on stalling speed and stability than XFA-27. Weapon bays of X-02 are also carefully arranged: Two small compartments are located behind air intakes, for storing and launching small-sized ordnance, a large main central compartment for containing bigger, heavier missiles and bombs. Like Fw190D, this is a killing machine that without any apparent design flaws. But unfortunately, "without any apparent design flaws" brings up its most apparent, fatal flaw — the cost. Although performance on battlefield were promising, even off its designers' scoping, but as the trend of Second Usean Continental War turned to ISAF's favor, Erusea couldn't afford further R&D on X-02 Wyvern prototypes, nor put schematics into mass-production. Just like Thrid Reich's Fw-190D, the dragon-king came out too late to help its creators to win the war. Still, a few complete machines were produced and took pieces of actions, such as Operation Stone Crusher, Operation Firefly, Operation Autumn Thunder and Operation Judgement Day. During Operation Katina, both ISAF and Free Erusea were seen equipped a number of them.

After victorious conclusion of Operation Katina, ISAF sold X-02's plans to international munitions market in exchange of funds to reconstruct the war-torn Usean Continent. The highest bidder, North Osea Gründer Industries, became the first and primary off-continent manufacturer of this impressive superfighter. To bring down cost, Gründer Industries spent years to optimize blueprints and was partially successful, by reducing numbers of parts, three planes can be produced by only paying bills of two, without lowering ratings of any aspects. They even developed a more advanced variant codenamed "X-02S Strike Wyvern", compatible with laser weaponry, plasma weaponry and experimental railgun, just before Circum-Pacific War broke out. Yet despite such remarkable accomplishments, cost remained a touchy issue, so till now only those top aces have privileges to obtain X-02 Wyverns or X-02S Strike Wyverns, in other words, owning an X-02 Wyvern variant is the certification of being a top ace.

Larry Foulke: "I'm lucky enough to fly a number of sorties inside X-02 and X-02S' cockpits, both evaluative flights and actual combats. Also I was able to pilot an XFA-27 for several times. If you ask me which one I prefer, I'd like to vote for X-02 variants. Because they boost better overall performance than XFA-27, and processes more 'feminine' and 'futuristic' silhouettes. they also somehow reminds me my old Morgan to a minor extent. That's all we have for today, next time we'll discuss something about Federation of Central Usea. Now let's return cameras back to battlefield."