Intercept

One of the most notable elements of the current corporate world is the rivalry between the second and third largest corporations in the world: the precision manufacture, semiconductor industry and aerospace behemoth comprised of hundreds of brands and subsidiaries that is simply known as Neuropa AG and the heavy industry and industrial manufacture giant named the ARC LTD., the American Resource Consolidation. The two corporations have their main industrial bases in the central European and Great Lakes/Tri-State Area respectively, but their territorial holdings are spread out across the entire globe in a series of thousands of enclaves, exclaves, shared or disputed territories and the belongings of affiliate corporations. These areas are normally no bigger than states like Luxembourg, and are where the corporations excercise unbridled influence and determine what can or cannot be bought and sold, making it in fact a form of corporate protectionism. The many arcologies of the corporate world are a way of maximizing the demographic, industrial and financial power of these small and relatively few enclaves, for the vast majority of the globe remains a relatively free borderless land.

One of the problems caused by having such a huge total area spread over the entire planet is logistics, as even with the help of the AUC's network of commercially neutral highways and cargo fleets, the corporations find it hard to move large ammounts of materiel from one territory to the other, especially military forces which are not allowed transit on most private superhighways. Thus, military cargo aviation is employed on a large scale. The downside of this is that aircraft often have to fly over the airspace controlled by rival corporations, which charge money for transit or intercept the flights. As an answer to that, both companies employ small fleets of "blockade runners".

While ARC has gone with the solution of using stealth aircraft, Neuropa uses hypersonic cargo aircraft based on the A2 design capable of flying over the service ceilings of regular military aircraft and surface-to-air missiles by a vast margin. In response to the new capabilities, the ARC's defense forces brought back an ancient bird of war.


(Yes, this is adapted from Ace Combat 3. That game rules.)