Since I've basically completely skipped the story so far, here are some emails from R to explain the various factions that make up the future world of Armored Core.
Let's start with Murakumo Millennium and Chrome themselves:
From: R
Chrome and Murakumo
Zam City was one of the very first cities built in the underground city development program, so redevelopment is proceeding in various areas of the city.
Although Chrome has held authority over this area, in recent years Murakumo has turned the tables so that most of the redevelopment projects habe been led by Murakumo.
It's not hard to imagine that these circumstances are involved in recent events.
I'll be in touch.
Zam City is the largest (I guess) underground city since the Great Destruction, and a number of missions take place there. OK, so this email doesn't really tell us much, other than Chrome and Murakumo Millennium are in competition with each other and both wield considerable influence.
From: Zam City Guard
Terrorists in the Shadows
Good work the other day.
Thanks to you, the redevelopment work has been safely resumed.
We were troubled to find that the squatters' weapons were likely supplied through the involvement of the terrorist group "Imminent Storm".
We really should perform a full-scale investigation, but they hold some pretty bad company, if you get my drift.
Unless we have direct evidence of wrongdoing, we cannot get involved.
Well, we have our reasons.
Even though we are called the "Guard", we are really mere cogs in the clockwork of business.
We don't want to do anything to wring our own necks. Unfortunately, that seems to be all we can do.
We look forward to working with you in the future.
This email basically explains all the guards. Essentially, the various guards officially work for the individual city, but as you may have noticed in certain missions, also do work for the various companies as well, such as when guards showed up to help guard the Chemical-Dyne facility. It also tells us about Imminent Storm, the anti-Murakumo Millennium terrorist group, versus:
From: R
Struggle
Despite the small scale of its activities, the armed group "Struggle" (sworn to fight against Chrome) is famous among the militaristic factions for being well-armed, exceeding even "Imminent Storm".
In other words, they must have some powerful backing behind them. The only corporation that has the power to resist Chrome is none other than Murakumo Millennium.
Murakumo must be giving some sort of organizational support to Struggle in order to whittle away at the power of Chrome: a very likely situation as you must see.
I'll be in touch.
So basically, both companies have a terrorist organization that they use to attack the other.
From: R
EERC
The Earth Environment Reclamation Committee has recently made a name for itself in the public eye.
Professing the goal of reclaiming the above-ground environment, the committee has some of the most prominent scientists in the world as its members.
However, there are many questions in regard to its true nature. There are rumors that it is actually an organization with some other purpose.
I'll be in touch.
For whatever reason the EERC doesn't get a logo. But it's made fairly clear that they're really working for Murakumo Millennium, working to locate pre-Great Destruction technology.
From: R
Chemical-Dyne Co.
There are many things about the Chemical-Dyne Co. that make it hard for one to say that it is a company with a good reputation.
Although it has achieved a solid position as a biochemical manufacturer, the rumors of dangerous experiments and chemicals refuse to be quelled.
In addition, it is a known fact that Chrome has been a major factor in their development through joint venture relationships.
I'll be in touch.
And this email tells us that Chemical-Dyne is essentially a part of Chrome.
So, here are the main factions:
No logo. | ||
Murakumo Millennium | Struggle (terrorist front) |
Earth Environment Reclamation Committee (Hippie front) |
It's kind of hard to see in the version of Struggle's banner I pulled, but it says "Dictum Factum" at the bottom, which a quick Google tells me means "Said and done."
And on the other side, we have:
Chrome | Imminent Storm (terrorist front) |
Chemical-Dyne (Corporate front) |
So there we go, a long over-due text dump giving a bit of the story that's really only explained in emails.