ZOE originally referred to Zero Occupancy Emergency protocol, a technology that FCUAF brass tasked Usea Dynamics with developing in 1992. It was intended to be an automatically-engaged autopilot that would return a fighter aircraft to level flight if he entered a state of G-LOC. Work on the program proceeded smoothly until Usea Dynamics engineers conceptualized a system that would continue fighting after a pilot lost consciousness. Approved by the FCUAF and rechristened the Zero Occupancy Engagement protocol in 1993, Usea Dynamics staff quickly hit the road block of how to identify targets at close range. Eventually they settled on a combined IRST/IFF system, but this would limit the system's application to the few Western planes with functioning IRST.
When the Allies seized the ADF-01A prototype at the conclusion of the Belkan War, Usea Dynamics purchased the airframe to study its rudimentary camera system. By 1996 Usea Dynamics had fitted the craft with a ZOE system capable of tracking targets through small, easily-installed visible light cameras, and began work on demonstrating the system's compatibility with craft in the FCU's current inventory. In early 1997 the ZOE system was successfully installed on an F-14B, F/A-18E, F-15S, and YF-22, and was capable of fully autonomous operation from takeoff to landing. As the first fully-autonomous UCAV AI system, ZOE was revolutionary for its time. Though rudimentary by the standards of UCAVs in the next few decades - most ZOE craft were programmed only to trail their targets and fire a short-range missile once locked on; the ADF-01 was a testbed for more advanced coding that integrated BVR combat and high-alpha maneuvering - almost all UCAV AIs programmed since then integrate some elements of its code. Shortly before the project ended, the F/A-18 and F-14 AIs were made capable of landing on aircraft carriers. Their success was short-lived, though, as the demonstrators were captured by rebels in the 1997 uprising and were all destroyed by pro-government forces.
Despite the project's ultimate failure, research performed for the ZOE system assisted in the development of fully autonomous UCAVs and COFFIN cockpits. Also, the ZOE F-14's wreckage found its way into Erusean hands after crashing and imitative technology was utilized in attempts to make X-02 Wyverns into autonomous dogfighters.