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Frequent visitors to the

CIC Forums

have already noticed that our message boards got a big upgrade this weekend. We first switched over to

Xenforo 1.0

back in 2011, and this brings us up to 2.1 (skipping right past 2.0)! There's a long list of basic quality-of-life tweaks that bring the forums in line with modern user interfaces. Graphical elements scale better to high res displays, a variety of post reactions are now available, more types of uploads can be added and the site displays much better on mobile devices. KrisV is still working on several additional features, including a more extended menu of emojis that will be available soon. We're also looking at a handful of neat optional upgrades that could be possible with the new setup - would people be interested in two-factor authentication? Check things out and

let us know

what you think!

Xenforo 2.0 highlightsGreatly-enhanced mobile-friendly

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I'm very excited to announce the date for the CIC's 24th Birthday Party! We're one month out: this year's gathering will be on Saturday, August 13. You can mark your calendars now for 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) on that night. We've got some fun ideas that we are pulling together now, and we've also been talking with some of you who are also building some awesome fan items that will be ready by then. The action takes place in Discord #Wingnut. Feel free to stop by any time beforehand to get acquainted with how everything works - and see you there!

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Somehow we're already in the second half of the year, and longtime CIC visitors will know that that means the CIC's birthday is approaching fast. It's a little later than we'd usually confirm the date, but this is a very unusual year. Last time much of the staff was able to get together in person and host a super fun live stream. We won't be able to get together in person this year, but we will still have a very exciting party for everyone!

We originally went live on August 10, 1998, but this year also marks the 30th birthday of the Wing Commander series itself. We've decided to combine our celebrations for these two milestones and observe the CIC birthday this year on the series' anniversary of September 26! This works out really well for us, and we hope it does for you too. The festivities will take place in #Wingnut on Discord at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). Stay tuned for more

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We don't usually write a news post about 9/11. Many others are doing actual September 11 memorials. But if we have a tiny relevant Wing Commander anecdote to share in the context of history, we're happy to do that. Just like with Oscar Mayer tweeting about the Wienermobile this weekend, there's a small amount of calm reassurance that comes along with everyone just doing what they're here to do. Our intent is never to exploit current events by finding how Wing Commander ties in to these things, but hopefully folks can appreciate the mission we're on. LOAF recalls this:

A bit of 9/11 trivia: [the evening of September 11th] had been scheduled to be the USA Network premiere of the Wing Commander movie with a rerun the next day. Instead USA rebroadcast news both days. Wing Commander finally aired a month later on October 14th.

One thing I've seen more this year is a complaint that people are

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One of John Nelson's original Wing Commander designs a while back was the sturdy Border Worlds Avenger. Although it's super impressive what people can do with Lego bricks, there's always room for improvement, and he's taken a second run at tightening things up a bit. The results look really solid. Most of the hull plating is a bit darker and the major structural elements are bit thicker with more mass. Hit the comment link to let him know what you think!

The last of my Lego updates, the Avenger. I went ground up to give it a more game accurate boxy and thicker look and the front cockpit cover had to change and I found the parts to do it. Enjoy.

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Here's a character that many people have been waiting for. Howard Day has put together his take on Christopher Blair for Wing Leader. He might look a little different than you remember, but that's because Howard has creatively de-aged Mark Hamill and combined him with Bluehair elements for a hybrid of the two. For those following the fan game's story/setting, he'll still be attached to the Tiger's Claw at this point in time.

Tonight in random #WingLeader discoveries... if you put dark-blue superman hair on Mark Hamill's face, you.. sorta get the character Col. Blair! Fun, since he played him in Wing Commander 3. At this point of the #WingLeader story, Colonel Christopher Blair has taken over the Flight command of the TCS Tiger's Claw. As always, #pixelart is rendered in #3dsmax!

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Pix

recently managed to locate a really awesome

review

of Wing Commander 3 from the magazine PC Zone. In line with the game's branching paths and dialog choices during cutscenes, the article actually lets you read through and jump to individual subsections based on what you think. In the end, these choices lead to two different conclusions and review scores! That's pretty clever. And there's a bonus interview with Mark Hamill afterwards. For more awesome finds like this for Wing Commander and other Origin series, check out Pix's

Origin Adventures

website.

I love this Wing Commander 3 review from the February 96 issue. It’s written in the form of a choose your own adventure complete with a choice of final scores. As much as I like the game, the comments on performance on lower performance machines are fair enough.

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Christian Klein

posted these neat pics of the Secret Missions made for China/Taiwan. We've

previously posted

about a number of Chinese ports in the past, including WC1, SM2, WC2 and the Special Operations, but it's possible that I've not seen the SM1 before. It's nice to close the loop on that! The packaging is nicely colored, and those white 5.25" disks are pretty swanky!

Taiwanese #WingCommander - The Secret Missions 1+2 / Publisher: Soft-World

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Here's a great sampling of Asian Wing Commander games that AD dug up while searching various online marketplaces. The majority are Taiwanese, although the Armada there is Japanese. We've posted most of these in various forms over the years, but it's fun to see them all in one place. One that's new to me is the Academy ad with faux cockpit struts added. WC3, Armada and the Privateers remain pretty elusive, even in bootleg form (as the loose bagged copies below are). The legit versions are those earlier ones published by Soft World. AD has also summarized a list of Chinese language search terms you can use if you're trying to bulk up your own International Wing Commander collection. Find those below!

《银河飞将》（Wing Commander）
《银河飞将：秘密任务》（WC: The Secret Missions）
《银河飞将：秘密任务2》（WC: The Secret Missions 2）

《银河飞将II：帝国逆袭》（Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi）
《银河飞将II：特别任务1》（WCII: Special Operations 1）

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An initiative to deliver rare commodities to an esoteric cult in the Zlota system has concluded.

Independent traders provided Aganippe Rush, Motrona Experience Jelly and Onion Head for a ceremony to be performed by the Children of Tothos. Other pilots protected the rare goods from being taken by pirates.

Barnabas Cole, leader of the Children of Tothos, gave another handwritten message to the media:

"By helping us, you free yourselves. You will feel the light of our testament fill you, just as it fills the heavens."

The initiative was organised by Zlota Federal Holdings, which allegedly counts some high-ranking officials as cult members. Contributing pilots can now collect their rewards from Nusslein-Volhard Settlement in the Zlota system.

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The Children of Tothos cult has been forcibly disbanded following its recent attempt to destroy Archambault Terminal with a nuclear weapon.

The aftermath of the crisis was described by Ethan Takahashi of the Federal Times:

"There has been widespread gratitude to the Federal Intelligence Agency for saving millions of lives. Senior Agent Rochelle Karim was praised for exploiting Barnabas Cole's acceptance of new followers, giving her tactical team an opportunity to infiltrate the cult's ranks."

"Celebrations have been coloured by the news that hundreds of starport citizens were ritually murdered before the cultists could be apprehended. The FIA has vowed to carry out a review of other fringe religions with a view to preventing similar tragedies."

"Questions are also being asked about the regulation of nuclear research. It is unknown if the Lucifer Device was unique or if other portable

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The Children of Tothos are preparing to destroy Archambault Terminal with a stolen nuclear weapon, sacrificing millions of lives in the name of their deity.

Crime correspondent Ethan Takahashi of the Federal Times delivered this report:

"Ritual sacrifices have now begun, according to a chilling broadcast from cult leader Barnabas Cole. He claims these deaths will lead to a final ceremony, when the Lucifer Device will be detonated. Dozens of the starport's citizens are already feared dead at the hands of cultists."

"Cole also made this statement: 'We welcome new followers who heed my testament by sending one of their siblings into Tothos's light.'"

"Since this message, disturbing reports have been received of newly docked ships killing one of their own crew, so that the rest are granted permission to join the cult."

"Federal authorities are still unsure how to free Archambault Terminal without

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The Belgian Chess History website runs a remarkable blog where they analyze and dissect chess games in progress across a variety of film and television. They look at the chess board setups and discuss how the characters (often inexplicably) got into their situation. Wing Commander has been featured, and it got a characteristically brutal scrubbing. Not only do they hate the setup, they're not fond of the characters nor even the chess pieces! You can find the full Belgian Chess History article here.

LOAF actually researched and found the actual chess set used in the WC Movie a while back. He also put together a slightly more accurate placement of the pieces, pictured below.

LOAF: It's just not a situation anyone would reasonably get to. Unless Bishop, a man named after a chess piece with said piece painted on his Rapier, is particularly terrible at chess.

Belgian Chess History: The idiot on the table

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There's a scene with a chess board in the Wing Commander Movie, and that means we need to figure out exactly what set was used in the filming! LOAF studied the footage up close and grabbed some good shots of the pieces. He put a call out online, and surprisingly, fellow fans zeroed it almost immediately. You might have to repaint it, but you too could own the same set as Adam "Bishop" Polanksi!

This came up over the weekend and I have to throw it to any chess experts out there: does anyone recognize the set they use in the Wing Commander movie?

Recreated the board with help from AD. And then Rosie's final move is (I think following one (1) reading of the Wikipedia entry on chess notation) Nxb3.

Also it’s odd that Lt. Polanski is so obviously terrible at the game given that his call sign is Bishop and his nose art is a little chess board.

Bruce Erickson spotted this, which looks like a good match! It

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Christian Klein

posted this fun shot of the cover of the Japanese DOS/V user manual. It's an interesting line art digitization of the WC1 box. The typed-in dashboard values mostly match up, although I think the KPS looks more like 2400 than 2480 and the bottom shield stat seems more like an 82 in the original. It might seem obvious at first that this is just the same iconic scene we always see, but this isn't the only time a familiar WC cockpit bears down on three Dralthi! Mike Winterbauer's famous

SNES art

and the

cover of End Run

are just a

few alternate examples

.

Random #WingCommander stuff ...

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There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about the enhanced footage that ODVS has made for Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy, but we've also heard from some folks who haven't downloaded the large (but not too large) file packs with the remastered clips. For all those folks, he's released this dazzling sample: the WC4 cinematic trailer. It's just gorgeous - even with YouTube's compression factored in! Owen made an entirely new set of clips for the CIC's recent birthday, and all the download links are available below.

• Wing Commander 3: version 2.0 (3.7 gig zip)

• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, English, Pack 1 (3.3 gig zip)
• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, English, Pack 2 (3.2 gig zip)
• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, German, Pack 1 (3.2 gig zip)
• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, German, Pack 2 (3.1 gig zip)
• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, French, Pack 1 (3.2 gig zip)
• Wing Commander 4: version 5.0, French, Pack 2

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Here's a couple of unboxing videos for Wing Commander Movie action figures by Nerd4Life. These are Blair in his flight suit and the Kilrathi General. YouTube has a pretty good real time auto translate option now, so if you blow up the videos and turn that on, it's possible to get the message behind what he's saying. I have to say that I almost jumped out of my chair when he ripped the plastic shell off. Not everyone is as terrified about tearing the cardboard it seems, and perhaps the glue has lost some of its stick after twenty years. I'm not sure I ever had the heart to open any of my own figures. At one point I did separately purchase opened ones on eBay to avoid violating my originals!

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Christian Klein posted some cool pictures of a Wing Commander box, and I thought this one was definitely worth sharing. There are many variants of the original "black box" Wing Commander, and most fans are familiar with the Deluxe Edition (with expansions) that come in a blue box. This particular copy, however, is the Software Toolworks Deluxe Edition that comes in a black box on CD! I added a copy of the blue floppy version for comparison. Most of the internal contents will be pretty familiar, but the CD holder itself is a pretty cool artifact! It's by no means the only version of the original game on CD, but many of those are part of other exotic compilations or OEM releases. Check out more of Christian's finds on Twitter.

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Dominus of Exult has some more cool collectibles to show off! He's managed to track down a pair of Wing Commander games localized in Portuguese. These rare copies of WC4 and Privateer 2 have a bit of warping and tearing damage, but it's still wonderful that they were saved. I'm still poring over the minute differences here despite not speaking the language! These should look great alongside his Portuguese copy of Privateer 1.

Got some new rarities. Portuguese Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2. Unfortunately the seller stored them in a very humid place. Trying to open the IV he destroyed the slide cover.

LOAF: Are they localized at all?

Dominus: Boxes and documents all in Portuguese. At least the intro has no subtitles. Look like the standard UK CDs. Even the quadruple CD case inlays are the UK ones and not translated (manual etc. are translated).

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New this month on the Wingkipedia: high res scans of the 1999 X-Toys Wing Commander trading cards! Fans who kept their cards in the packaging could be missing out on some awesome reverse-side lore!

A different trading card was included with each of X-Toys' eight Wing Commander action figures in 1999. The rear card text is largely adapted from the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook.