The Strider Headquarters (ストライダー本部) is a location featured in the original Strider Hiryu manga and its NES adaptation, where it appears as the second area of the "Los Angeles" stage.

The Strider Headquarters is the primary base of the Striders, located on a desert at an undisclosed location. The base is built within a large rocky formation and houses the group's center of operations. As the organization's Earth-based headquarters, it stands in contrast to the Blue Dragon satellite found on Earth's orbit.

Layout

Control room

The base's center of operations, the control room is a circular area equipped with advanced computer terminals. The room has a big white marble floor with several pillars strewn around the walls, while the surroundings are made up of several circular openings on the rock wall serving as large windows to the outside. The top of the room is lined up with several large monitor screens.^[1]

Matic receives Yuri in this area, and they discuss Hiryu and Kain's actions against Enterprise and their ZAIN Project while observing their stats on the monitor screens.

Kuramoto's office

Director Kuramoto's office is a spacious room with clean floors and a desk from where he performs his duties as leader of the group. Behind his desk stands a large glass window in a square grid pattern, from where he observes the outside area^[2]. In one of the walls next to the desk there's a number of framed pictures standing at the top, showing every active Strider in the group^[3]. The office is likely near the upper part of the structure.

Kuramoto's living chambers

Kuramoto has a second, more modest room where he stayed when he was suffering from senility. This room is adorned with Japanese scrolls on the walls, a katana mounted on a desk and a small television with a large video collection^[4]. Kuramoto spent time here watching Japanese dramas like Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai"^[4], acting as if he was senile while waiting for the traitors within the Striders to reveal themselves.

Hangar

A hangar located at the top of the rocky structure, where the group stores their flying vehicles. The hangar has a small platform coming out of the front door serving as its takeoff platform.

Kuramoto appears to enjoy using this platform to go outside the base, watch the night sky and meditate in peace. He's seen doing this after having sent Hiryu on his last mission as a Strider.^[5]

In the NES Strider

Main article: Los Angeles

When Hiryu infiltrates The Syndicate's headquarters, he finds a Transport Tube that connects the Strider Headquarters' control room with their base in Los Angeles. After reaching the control room, he finds a dying Sheena (seemingly fatally injured by Matic) and discovers The Syndicate's director Faceas Clay has an office within the headquarters, protected behind a tempered glass shield.

Gallery

Control room's rocky walls, as seen in the manga

Hangar platform

Hiryu's framed picture in Kuramoto's office

Lower side of the area in the NES Strider

Concept art

Trivia

• In the Famicom prototype there's a transfer point in the Blue Dragon map which leads directly into the second area of Los Angeles, correctly named Strider Headquarters (ストライダーホンブ). In the English version, this was removed and the Blue Dragon map shows the transfer point to Los Angeles twice instead.
• Although its location has never been officially confirmed, the Blue Dragon map (seen right) in the prototype shows it to be located somewhere near Turkey in the middle east.
• Isuke has stated that, when he created the setting of Strider, he drew both the "Strider base in the desert" and "the dragon in space"^[6], indicating this base and the Blue Dragon are both his creation. This could also indicate both locations exist in the backstory of the Arcade game as well.
• There are mentions of bases and headquarters for the Striders in the other games in the series, albeit none of these appear in any capacity nor are expanded beyond a simple mention.
  • The PC Engine port mentions a Strider Base (ストライダーベース), the place from where the Navigator assists Hiryu in his mission^[7], possibly in reference to this location.
  • The manual for the Mega Drive version of Strider Returns calls Moralos Island as the secret base of the Striders, unlike the English Mega Drive manual for the original game, where it is listed as a "secret training location" only.
  • At the end of Strider 2, Hiryu communicates with Headquarters after killing Grandmaster Meio to confirm the success of his mission. As the Striders are stated to have been annihilated with the exception of Hiryu himself, it is uncertain if this means the group is still operational in some manner or if this is meant to be a symbolic gesture, as this was the last mission given to Hiryu.
  • The ending of the 2014 Strider, in an homage to Strider 2, also has Hiryu communicate his success to Headquarters once he returns safely to Earth after defeating Meio Prime. In this instance, however, there are no indications of the Striders having been wiped out.

References