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Here's a closer look at Super Wing Commander's awesome cross-series Easter egg. If you leave the game idle in the Tiger's Claw's lounge for enough time it will occasionally trigger an animated figure of Ultima's Avatar who flies by outside the ship. Here's a shot of the game and the sprite sheet used for the Avatar.

The Avatar's 3D animation is from the ending cutscene to Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle. There we see them flying through space to restore the balance between Order and Chaos. Then he is grabbed by an enorous red hand. This is the setup for the next game in the series which begins with the hand flinging him to the world of Pagan.

Here's a recording of the entire endgame:

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Last night, AD picked up an old magazine and put down an unseen Wing Commander ship design! What he found was a 1999 advertisement for a company called BOXX Technologies which produces high spec computers for the film industry. The premise of the ad is that their computers are the biggest leap for visual effects since they started in 1903 with Georges Méliès's Le Voyage dans la Lune. And their modern example is about how Chris Roberts used their RenderBOXX rendering systems for Wing Commander:

Here's proof: Digital Anvil credits RenderBOXX with saving $2 million on Wing Commander production costs, helping the film land on time and under budget!

That would be an interesting factoid in its own right, but the visuals used to represent this are even more interesting! They show a collection of high tech starfighters blasting out of film frames displaying frames from Le Voyage dans la Lune: literally

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The Wing Commander movie club hit the finish line with Monte Carlo or Bust!, although the Wing Commander connection remains pretty broad! More on that Friday when we'll be watching a completely different sort of movie: Highlander (1986). Highlander is a fantasy adventure film that has attained cult classic status and spawned a long-running IP with sequels, TV shows and other media. It tells the story of nigh immortal Scottish warriors battling across the ages–so you can expect plenty of swords and brogues! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

What's the Wing Commander connection? In Starlog's Wing Commander movie magazine, Chris Roberts talks about how Sean Connery's character in Highlander was the inspiration for Paladin's character in the original game. Which should give us a great chance to do the one thing everyone secretly desires: talk about Paladin.

When I was originally doing

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Game Bytes was one of the very first electronic gaming magazines. It was created by Ross Erickson and distributed as an executable through FTP sites, bulletin boards and services like Compuserv. Looking back, it's a particularly raw time capsule of the game industry at the time, an era before professional public relations had quite taken over. And lucky for us, Mr. Erickson conducted a thorough interview with a very young Chris Roberts in 1992. This one is well worth the time for anyone interested in the history of making Wing Commander. It brings you right back to a more romantic era of game making and it's full of fascinating details about the early Wing Commanders... from the origin of the Kilrathi to the nuts and bolts of how the games were programmed to a wild (but still recognizable) plan for Wing Commander III!

An interview with Chris Roberts (6/16/92), Author of the Wing Commander series of PC

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The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War is one of the darkest current events in a time that offers no shortage of such things. Escaping into fiction, however, we will find that Wing Commander's lore offers us some good news: the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv still exists in the 27th Century… at least until 2668! Today we're taking a quick look at the surprising numbers of times Wing Commander references the city. Kyiv was founded over 1,500 years ago and today is one of the largest cities in Europe. Since 1991 it has been the capital of an independent Ukraine. Note that the modern spelling of the city name, Kyiv, has only become standard in English in the past five years. When Wing Commander was being developed, the Soviet-era "Kiev" was still the common spelling. Our editorial standard is to use the current spelling for anything newly written and to retain the old one only for quotations.

Kyiv was first mentioned

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After Action Report: Battlestar Galactica

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club has returned from the Twelve Colonies and we're here to report that Battlestar Galactica remains fairly impressive! It can't hold up to Star Wars in terms of narrative or world building but boy do those special effects come close. It's obvious that it's a TV pilot turned into a movie but everything is still pretty satisfying… although we probably spend a little bit too much time on the casino planet.

And Battlestar Galactica's reputation as a major source of inspiration for the early Wing Commander games is well deserved. From Ferrets and Dralthi to Hunter and the Tiger's Claw, it's all in there to some degree or another. We'll start with the takeoff scene that Denis Loubet has noted as an inspiration for the one in the original Wing Commander. We've got both the red-tinted 'closing the cockpit' scene and a launch

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969) which, according to Chris Roberts, inspired the climactic battle at the end of the Wing Commander movie. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

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Do you remember Wing Commander Armada's Gauntlet mode? We do! It was essentially a 'Wing Commander lite' included with Armada that let you (and optionally a second player) battle through one of two fifteen mission campaigns. Instead of cutscenes or dialogue, the story is presented as text-based mission briefings aboard the TCS Lexington or the KIS Shiraak… but it's still packed with lore and there are some pretty interesting engagements that most players never had a chance to explore! Here are two favorites: a Kilrathi mission where you fight a renegade Admiral and a Confederation mission where you escort home a pair of new bombers in an Arrow:

… but it remains mostly unknown because it's very, very hard. The big Armada patch added a password system so players could jump to any mission but it takes dedicated and extreme patience to beat the Gauntlet itself. So we've made things easier by creating

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The SNES port of Wing Commander II isn't the only Origin game that was essentially finished but unreleased. Here are two advertisements I recently noticed while working on another project: published advertisements for Pacific Strike CD (1994) and Bioforge Plus (1995). These were both 'budget' projects that were far in development when Electronic Arts decided to reorganize Origin's projects. Some material from Bioforge Plus has leaked over the years, including the completed 'gauntlet' feature. I wonder if the unreleased Pacific Strike audio or the extra missions are out there somewhere…

... but one thing Pacific Strike-related that IS out there is its largely undocumented Japanese sequel/remake. In 1998, Sony published a game in Japan called Zero Pilot which according to its packaging is credited to Origin Systems. Huh?! That's right, Zero Pilot is a licensed sequel to Pacific Strike that updates it to

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A proxy conflict between supporters of Jerome Archer and Denton Patreus appears to be slowing down after several days of sustained fighting.
Battlefield reporters for the Chi Eridani Herald state that the Jerome Archer group emerged victorious, scoring a higher number of confirmed victories in the area.
A spokesperson for Jerome Archer provided the following to the Herald:
"It's obvious that this outcome proves the strong influence and military might of Jerome Archer's supporters in Chi Eridani. Hopefully this leads to a widespread acceptance of the benefits and protection that Archer's leadership can bring to the system."
Those who took part in the conflict for either side can now collect their rewards.
Jerome Archer supporters can collect their rewards at Steve Masters starport.
Denton Patreus supporters can collect their rewards at the Evanescent Dusk megaship.

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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation Alert*
The governing faction of the Dhan system has called for support in fending off a spike in local piracy.
Harald Gomes, head of security for the Dhan Empire League, spoke to local reporters:
"It's becoming obvious that pirates are growing bolder in recent weeks. We've received alarming frequent reports of attacks and looting throughout our system's many planetary rings – icy rings in particular. Our security forces are overwhelmed, and the Imperial navy is occupied in other areas. So, we're asking for help."
While piracy hotspots are not unusual, the situation in Dhan has drawn interest due to rumours that Gutamaya analysts have arrived in the system to track the performance of any newly released Corsair vessels used in the fighting.
Dhan Empire League has offered extra rewards to independent combat pilots willing to eliminate criminals and collect bounties in Dhan,

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There's another project update for Origin composer George Oldziey's new new Wing Commander album. The physical orders have now been sent out to production! CDs could be back from the manufacturer as soon as this month and vinyls are expected in later May. George has reiterated his appreciation for all his supporting fans and is working on releasing a couple more treats to tide folks over before the albums arrive!

Greetings all. Just to let you know all the media for production of both the CD's and vinyl are submitted and are in the process of being produced. The CD's should arrive at my home in about 10 days. The vinyl will take a bit longer. In the mean time I'm going to make both the artwork and audio files for the vinyl available to you for download very soon. That way you can use the artwork with your own playlists and listen to the tracks in sequence without stopping with only a second in

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The initial production run of Gutamaya's new Corsair ships has been deployed to much fanfare, with a flurry of adverts targeting early consumers.
In a statement marking the occasion, Gutamaya's lead engineer Ines Allende remarked:
"Today marks a significant milestone for Gutamaya. The Corsair blends our customary elegant design with exceptional multipurpose capability, fulfilling the diverse demands of modern pilots."
"With a balanced hardpoint configuration, substantial cargo capacity, powerful thrusters and four utility slots, this vessel adapts beautifully for trading, combat, and exploration roles."
The Corsair is Gutamaya's first commercially available multirole ship which forgoes any Imperial Navy rank requirement. It offers versatility in a medium-sized ship classification, making it viable for trading with outposts inaccessible to larger Imperial vessels.
Princess Aisling Duval,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got an unusual one this week: the 1969 comedy Monte Carlo or Bust! (aka Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies). Monte Carlo or Bust! is the sequel to the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. It's a comedy racing movie set in the 1920s at the Monte Carlo Rally which stars Tony Curtis; it seems to be generally well regarded but no one on the team has seen it! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Wing Commander connection is equally mysterious and something we're going to have to explore as we watch. The quote that added it to our roster is from Chris Roberts' original treatment for the Wing Commander movie. Here he describes the film's climax–which seems to have become the 'broadside' scene–as being "literally Monte Carlo or Bust". Can we figure out what that means when we watch the movie?

As the Tiger's Claw slips behind a nearby planet, a plan

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Anyone out there looking for some new Privateer-centric 3D environments to play with is in for a treat! Cybot has a released a handful of new assets ranging from large to small. These include items like the weapon commodities and a flight sim pod. There's also a larger commodity exchange and CIC room. The big treat is an entire hangar big enough to host a Galaxy. Download them from the CIC Forum links below!

Feel free to use any of model however you want to

• Hangar
• Commodity Exchange, Commodities and Flight Sim Pod
• Planetary Habitats

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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning!Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of cartoons... specifically, the infamous "Warrior King" crossover that tied together Street Fighter, Savage Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and Wing Commander Academy. How did it happen? Why did it happen? You'll learn that and more as we run the cycle together... so get ready to see just how dedicated the Warrior King is to his precious Orb! You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. Be sure to download the episodes so they're ready to play with the group!

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is back from Rylos and we're happy to report that it's still pretty nice! The Last Starfighter is a movie that deserves its cult classic status and if anything a modern viewing finds a more balanced and enjoyable film than it once seemed. It's easy to say that all of the cuts back to the robot duplicate on Earth are getting in the way of what you want to see… but in reality they did a pretty good job of making you appreciate the space action. A movie that's all fighter pilots shooting things wouldn't have come together like this!

For the Wing Commander connections, we have to start with the Gunstar which obviously inspired Glen Johnson's design of the Raptor. The recent 4k restoration of Last Starfighter is stunning and it is full of incredibly clear shots of the computer generated Gunstar. We've picked a few favorites here and have included an appendix

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Battlestar Galactica (1978) which inspired… a LOT of the first two Wing Commander games. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

And don't forget our Warrior King Cartoon Party is early tomorrow!

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We've added something to the archive that we once tried to forget! When we started preserving Wing Commander Academy way back in 1997 using RealMedia encodings one of the first things we did was cut out all the commercials… and the 'bumpers' that advertised the show. These are the commercials that ran in between segments of the show letting you know it was coming up, starting, going in and out of commercials and so on. They're peak 1990s goofy, mixing Academy clips with children in crazy outfits and things like basketballs. But while they seemed cringeworthy once upon a time now they're a pretty fascinating part of history. One especially interesting thing, though, is that they use the original 2D logo for the show that was dropped (inset)!

We've collected nine so far and expect to find more as more old VHS tapes are digiized and published online. Our 'holy grails' are the show's original teaser

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Imperial agents have been blamed for an outbreak of combat in the Federally controlled Chi Eridani system.
Several incidents have occurred between supporters of Shadow President Jerome Archer and Senator Denton Patreus of the Empire. The former group blames the latter for trying to subvert Federal governance of the system.
Vox Galactica spoke to a representative for Jerome Archer's power base in Chi Eridani:
"Recent interactions with these Imperial troublemakers have been challenging, to say the least. But we didn't expect them to flood the system in such large numbers! As such they should be treated as a hostile invading force. Patreus's proxy squadrons must be driven out to solidify Jerome Archer's position as the key figurehead of Chi Eridani."
Meanwhile, a representative of the Imperial agents also provided a statement:
"Federal political complacency is to blame for growing calls for the