in end of deception , crux tells you that aurelia's satellite surveillance system is back online for tracking fenrirs position , which makes sense for the events of AC7 , and then when you take down a fenrir , aquila squadron supports you by saying "They are ***only human" "***You can take them!"
Absolutely mental , that they were thinking about AC7 in the 2000s when ACX was being developed!
From the events of ace combat 7 , we know the Z.O.E was discontinued, but is it really discontinued , considering how messed up belkans are? Now lets fast forward to around 1 year after AC7 , to ACX where all the missions are basically Gryphus 1's choices(meaning the canon events of ACX couldve been completely different)
So one mission which isnt canon is Operation X , where gryphus one dogfights a bunch of fighters and then goes against scarface 1(a mercenary remember that) , and a Z.O.E , AND THEY HAVE LASERS just like Hunin and Munin(maybe a coincidence) , now the battle seems to happen in a deserted place(could be near the Kalana Steppes) so this probably was some sort of option gryphus 1 did have , but he probably just ignored it considering , scarface 1 and Z.O.E werent really part of the leasath military , and hence , Operation X isnt a canon event.
Now coming back to the Z.O.E , maybe it wasnt really discontinued and they were still working on some units in pockets of regions , and the fact that Scarface 1 is a mercenary who works for the money, makes it VERY PROBABLE that the Belkans decided to pay him money to help in the development of the Z.O.E , now remember the Z.O.E trains from really good pilots , and guess what , Gryphus 1 gets fame from destroying the Glepnir , which probably led to the Belkans to a renewed attempt in training the AI by fighting Gryphus 1 after the events of Santa Elva and additionally in order to make sure the AI's learnings from Gryphus 1 doesnt go in vain after getting shot down , they let Scarface 1 battle along with the ZOE and also maybe to improve the AI even more since its learning from Scarface 1 as well.
what do you think of this stupid theory i made up?
in stand canyon , if u shoot a bridge down , a dialogue plays from the leasath's tank unit that indicates that they know the bridge is destroyed , BUT THE TANK JUST CONTINUES TO DRIVE INTO THE BROKEN BRIDGE , AND THEN FALLS OFF THE BRIDGE VERY SLOWLY and the tank ends up destroyed , i literally raged after finding this out because i was tryna get the medal for the mission coz it makes things so much easier , just take out all the bridges and only take down the apaches , i literally suffered in ace mode.