The SCOURGE

The earlier mentioned SCOURGE finally receives its first fighter!

Well, not really.

Hence the designation Red Opponent C, this is actually the third iteration of the Red Opponent, and fourth of the SCOURGE warriors if we count the unreleased Steve. However, while far from the first SCOURGE jet made, it is the first to see the light of day due to superior flight performance to the others.

Red Opponents, on the surface, may be quite maneuverable, but still fragile and not hard to destroy if placed under direct fire. Making matters worse (for the Red Opponent), their flare dispenser has virtually no cooldown, meaning that all flares will be dumped at once, which means that any smart missile user won't struggle to get a ranged hit on the "ROC." The problem comes in their numbers. Exact count isn't known, but estimates place the Red Opponent C "population" at roughly 12,000- and climbing despite rapid losses due to combined efforts from several of the CSV's most feared forces, like the Monarchii, MDA, NMR, and Sabreswarm (they never died off lol, Sabreswarm is forever).

The individual Red Opponent doesn't need to be unstoppable, unbreakable, unkillable, or otherwise invincible. There just needs to be a lot of them. And given that the SCOURGE seems to have the means of making this war one of attrition, that's a considerable threat. Thankfully, we have Annihilators and soon Extinctors which can wipe out several ROCs at once, but as time passes, the SCOURGE will slowly learn how to make planes of high quantity and quality. If, or even when that happens, we can only hope we're ready for the storm.