A World With No Boundaries

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"Territories, peoples, authorities... all will be liberated. This is the new state, 'A World With No Boundaries' will create. Neither nations nor nationalities have meaning. We will erase these unnecessary borders."
― Joshua Bristow[2][3]

A World With No Boundaries[a] was a terrorist organization primarily composed of renegade military personnel from Belka, Osea, Yuktobania, and Sapin. The group formed during the final weeks of the Belkan War and led an insurrection against the Allied Forces in December 1995.

As its name implies, members of A World With No Boundaries aspired to eliminate national borders. The Belkan War's roots in ultranationalism and territory shifts led to the belief that nationalism and border disputes were the root causes of all wars; by eliminating nations, the group's members believed, they would eliminate war.

History

Formation

Specific details concerning the founding of A World With No Boundaries remain unknown; however, the nascent insurrection began sometime during the two-week ceasefire at the end of the Belkan War. Although it has not been definitively proven, its founder and "head director" is believed to have been Belkan Air Force ace Anton Kupchenko.[1] Belkan politician Waldemarr Rald also supported the movement to an unknown extent.[4]

Kupchenko's army primarily consisted of soldiers and airmen hailing from Belka, Sapin, and Osea; a handful of Yuktobanian pilots also deserted the Yuktobanian Air Force to join the movement.[5] The deserters' reasons for joining the movement varied from personal allegiances[6] to ideological extremism. Kupchenko's main lieutenants were Osean Air Defense Force pilots Anthony Palmer and Joshua Bristow, who had become disillusioned with the Osean military during their service in the Belkan War. Kupchenko's prior involvement with weapons-development projects such as Project Pendragon allowed the group to seize the experimental ADFX-02 Morgan fighter and XB-0 Hresvelgr gunship for its own means. Other high-end armaments were also illicitly procured through the efforts of Belkan test pilot Paul Rummenigge.[7]

Postwar insurrection

"The battle to re-line the borders has moved to the meeting boardroom. Those lines will give birth to new conflict. Rising above countries and armies, our 'World With No Boundaries' will become one. For the ideal. For the people."
― Anthony Palmer[8]

A World With No Boundaries remained dormant until December 25, 1995. The coup d'état forces proceeded to bomb the city of Lumen with the XB-0 gunship, before targeting Valais Air Base in eastern Ustio. The XB-0 and its rebel escorts, including Espada Team, attempted to escape over the Waldreich Mountains, but Galm Team intercepted and shot them down.[9] In spite of this setback, the group continued working towards its goal of global unification. Soon afterward, Osea and Ustio launched an investigation into the coup and its members.

Avalon plot and defeat

The V2, launched by Foulke's ADFX-02 Morgan, gaining altitude over Avalon Dam
"Can you see any borders from here? What has borders given us? We're going to start over from scratch. That's what V2 is for."
― Larry Foulke to Cipher[10]

Sometime before December 31, A World With No Boundaries seized control of the Avalon Dam missile-silo complex, with the intention of launching the V2 missile stored there at unspecified targets around the world. The extremists believed that this act would bring about the birth of a "new world", devoid of nations or wars. The Allied Forces consequently dispatched a strike team to Avalon in an attempt to prevent the launch.[11]

Kupchenko was ultimately killed in combat after he and his squadron encountered Galm Team over Area B7R.[11] Though their leader had been lost, Bristow, Palmer, and the other rebels attempted to carry on with the V2 launch. However, Galm Team destroyed Avalon's launch-control modules, precluding their goal of global unification via mass murder.[2][3][8] Although Larry Foulke (Galm Team's former number two) remotely launched the V2 from his ADFX-02, he was eventually shot down by his former wingman, Cipher, resulting in the V2's self-destruction and the final defeat of A World With No Boundaries.[10]

Disbandment and repercussions

The organization was disbanded shortly after the defeat at Avalon. Its members either evaded capture and disappeared or were arrested and convicted by Allied countries; Bristow is currently serving time in prison for his terrorist activities.[12] Others, such as Palmer and Marcela Vasquez, were more fortunate and have transitioned back into civilian life.[6][13] A number of former members, such as Bristow's former Wizard Squadron wingmen, are known to have continued their anti-government activities into 1996.[14] The subsequent investigation into A World With No Boundaries led to the ousting of Rald and his faction from the Belkan government.[4]

Allusion

The ideology and naming conventions of A World With No Boundaries alludes to the modern Arthurian work The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

In the work's first novel, The Sword in the Stone, a goose explains to a young King Arthur (then known as Wart) that geese do not wage war because "there are no boundaries among the geese" and describes boundaries as "imaginary lines on the earth".[15]:170 In a later chapter, a badger reinforces this to Wart; the badger claims that the human race "is almost the only animal which wages war" and that nomadic tribes do not wage war "because they do not claim boundaries".[15]:193–194

At the end of the work's fourth novel, The Candle in the Wind, King Arthur concludes that the root cause of war is "political geography" and, to end all warfare, "the imaginary lines on the earth's surface only [need] to be unimagined." He resolved to return to Great Britain "with a new Round Table which had no corners, just as the world had none—a table without boundaries between the nations who would sit to feast there."[15]:638–639

The group's base of operations at Avalon Dam reinforces this, as Avalon was the name of an island and a major location in Arthurian myth that Arthur retired to upon being gravely wounded in battle.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ A World With No Boundaries (国境無き世界 Kokkyō Naki Sekai)

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Scene 16S: "The Guardian", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mission 17M: "The Valley of Kings" (Mercenary), Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Mission 17S: "The Valley of Kings" (Soldier), Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Assault Records #167: Lars Matthaus, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  5. ↑ Assault Records #133: Yuri Dashkov, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Scene 15: "A Woman of Undying Faith", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  7. ↑ Assault Records #162: Paul Rummenigge, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Mission 17K: "The Valley of Kings" (Knight), Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  9. ↑ Mission 15: "The Talon of Ruin", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Mission 18: "Zero", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Mission 16: "The Demon of the Round Table", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  12. ↑ Scene 16K: "A Revolutionary", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  13. ↑ Scene 16M: "The Witness", Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  14. ↑ Assault Records #156: Iosif Beletsky, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 White, Terence Hanbury. The Once and Future King (1976 ed.). Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9780425031742.
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