Transcript:Harling's mirror
This page contains a transcript of "Harling's mirror", the 13th cutscene in Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. It immediately plays before starting "Lost Kingdom" during a campaign run.
Transcript
Avril Mead (narrating): We found a boat, then sailed away from the island. We had to. We didn't belong there. The new guy's name was Georg. I noticed when the anarchist said his name, he said it with a thick Belkan accent.
Avril Mead: How did you know that he was from Belka?
Tabloid: Well, both of my parents were from Belka, so...
Avril Mead: You never told me that. They say that Belkans are known for their conspiracies.
Tabloid: [chuckle] That's just a stereotype. Now I simply stated my honest opinion and was thrown in jail for it.
Avril Mead (narrating): The Princess sat there, looking miserable. That was a dumbass stunt she pulled back there, but it got us on this boat.
Avril Mead: Take a look at that. This ship is heading for a single rope that's hanging down from the sky. Do you know how far the end of that rope reaches?
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: [pause] Outer space.
Avril Mead: No, it is a direct connection to the very potential of mankind itself. [Avril spots the OFS Admiral Andersen] Or at least it was until war erupted...
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: It's my strong belief that the rope might be connected to a very distant faraway source of... of great conflict and strife. Even long before the war, the whole world started falling apart once Harling began trying to build it. I often wonder what was going through Harling's mind when... when he was trying to destroy the very thing that so many people were sacrificed in order to create?
Avril Mead: Sacrificed? What do you mean?
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: Have you seen all of those countless old space shuttles on Tyler Island that are no longer in use?
Avril Mead: Yeah, [chuckle] I always thought of them as a good source of scrap. They're an obsolete technology that was abandoned during the construction of the space elevator. Which would mean that if the space elevator was destroyed, it would be that much harder for mankind to reach the stars until we find another way.
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: But even then Harling still went ahead and tried to destroy it. At the cost of his own life.
Avril Mead: That's not the way I heard it. What I heard was that he sacrificed himself to protect the tower from an incoming missile.
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: Oh. I was told he tried to fly his ship into the tower in order to destroy it.
Avril Mead: [sigh] I wonder which story is true, Your Royal Highness.
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: I don't know... [Cossette walks to Avril] Looking at it objectively, it's reasonable to believe that Harling had both options before him.
Avril Mead: When it comes to which one you think he took, I guess it's like a mirror.
Rosa Cossette D'Elise: Yes, it is. It's like a mirror looking into your own soul, based on whichever choice you believe it was. At the moment though, I can only see darkness. I think... I think that thing should be destroyed.