r/ImaginaryVehicles • u/Zharan_Colonel • 1d ago
Original Content Primary close air support aircraft of the Frontier War (2371-2381)
Historical Notes
The A-37 was developed in the late 2340s by the Interplanetary Dynamics vehicle assembly plants on Europa. As with most of the other vehicles assembled there for use by Coalition forces during the ongoing Draconist Wars, its primary intended destination was Titan. In sorties over the Shangri-La and Xanadu, the airframe’s ruggedness and dependability in combat made it a godsend for Coalition troops on the ground. It went on to serve during the Frontier War, as well, where this dependability was put to the ultimate test and where the A-37 truly earned its stripes in repeated sorties against the Alliance.
The AA-61 evolved out of a competition initiated in 2353 by the Comissão de Armamentos Militares (CAM) in order to develop a superior strike aircraft for use by the Forças Terrestres in a close air support role. The Jiuquan National Assembly won the competition with a design called Objeto 614, which experienced its first test flight in 2357. The finished aircraft entered production four years later as the AA-61, codenamed “Vespa” (Wasp) by the CAM officers who made the final selection. Its Coalition reporting name, “Locust,” came later from spacers left embittered by its capacity to linger over the battlefield.
In 2375, the Zharan Ministry of Armaments (ZMA) adopted the ZF75 as a homegrown tactical strike fighter for the Zharan Liberation Army Ground Forces (ZLAGF). The engineers involved in its development made use of advanced composites, sleek & stealthy control surfaces, and a cutting-edge scramjet engine to create a versatile killing machine for delivering death from the skies of contested worlds. ZF75s were produced in large numbers between 2375 and 2382, and won high marks during the zharan intervention in the Frontier War (2371-2381) where their performance made them the pride of the Strike Air Wing.
About the Setting
The Spacers Saga: Frontier Wars is a futuristic military science fiction setting which diverged from our timeline when an asteroid slammed into Phoenix, AZ, in May 2014. Fifteen years after this tragedy, the industrialist Charles Larsen ushered in the Age of Fusion, opening up deep space to crewed exploration and eventual human settlement — and all of the strife that we bring with us. The next 300+ years were marked by progress and peril in equal measure, and by 2300 much of the solar system had been charted by intrepid human pioneers.
The story focuses on the rivalry between the Mars-led Coalition for Mutual Security (aka the Coalition) and the Alliance of Free Worlds (aka the Alliance), a federation of rebel worlds in the outer solar system. These two superpowers fought a brutal war from 2371 to 2381 (the Frontier War), which ended when the Zharan Collective (a union of artificial humans which rose up against their creators in 2356) entered the war on the side of the Alliance in 2379. The story opens 10 years later with the superpowers locked in a frigid ideological cold war.
The plot kicks off when the Alliance launches a massive attack against the Coalition, igniting the Second Frontier War. This conflict quickly engulfs the entire solar system and draws in participants from all backgrounds, including three college students from Mars whose adventures will become tied up with the fate of all humanity…
Creator's Note
For clarity's sake, I (u/Zharan_Colonel) drew these vehicles by taking inspiration and guidance from existing pieces of art or from real-world designs. The A-37 and AA-61 borrowed heavily from work featured by AST21 on ArtStation, and the ZF-75 drew from real-world concepts developed by the British company AvPro during the late Cold War, as drawn by Bagera3005 on DeviantArt.