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Some sad news, RIP. "Sim Wong Hoo, the founder, chairman and CEO of Creative Technology, died on Jan 4." Creative's technology is massively important to the history of the PC... and their output in the 1990s was incredible! Wing Commander and Creative had a long and fruitful relationship and I thought it might be good to have a discussion about it.

The 1989 DOS port of Chris Roberts' Times of Lore was the first Origin game to include Sound Blaster support. The two companies' first official partnership was a small one: in 1990, Creative began including a Wing Commander I promo shot on the original Sound Blaster packaging.

But in 1991, Wing Commander spoke! WC2's Summer CES captured the world's attention by using a newly-released Sound Blaster Pro to present a cutscene where the evil Kilrathi actually spoke (hastily voiced by game developers recording themselves)!

That September, the game included a fully

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Back in 1999 a trailer for the Wing Commander movie leaked and broke the internet... or at least the website! This 3 minute trailer featured not just a sneak peak at the highly anticipated video game based movie, but ended up also hiding alternate takes and snippets from deleted scenes that ultimately didn't make it into the final film. That video has only been available in very low quality (and low framerate) DivX video (10 meg avi). First, here's a raw export of the VHS:

...until now. A recently recovered VHS contained an slightly earlier version of this same trailer!While the actual edit on this tape is the same, keen observers will note that this is a slightly earlier version of the trailer than was leaked online as it also features some less-finished CG effects in a few places. I spent some time and effort to remove color noise left over from the VHS capture (over which I had no control or

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got another fun vintage magazine scan submitted by Maxi de Sokar. It's a Spanish publication, OK PC, that highlights the DROSoft translation of Wing Commander 2 and Special Operations 1&2. Right off the bat, there's a glaring mistake. The box art on the second page is obviously a combo pack for Secret Missions 1&2, and if my translation is correct, there's nothing in the text that references these games. It's just the art they chose. After thirty years I can excuse the error - rather, I appreciate these kinds of finds like a coin collector might value mis-printed money. The screenshots are just as gorgeous as ever, and seeing these takes me back to when you might have flipped through these in print back in the '90s and been dazzled by the cutting edge graphics. This is a very cool find!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The recent battle in the Reorte system has caused Sirius Corporation to question the terms of its partnership with the Alliance.
The Alliance Tribune's political correspondent Vanya Driscoll reported:
"When Sirius Corporation megaships arrived in four Allied systems, it's fair to assume they anticipated a degree of public resistance. But being directly attacked by the Reorte Mining Coalition clearly wasn't part of their risk assessment."
"Li Yong-Rui has urgently sought assurances from the Alliance that such conflicts will not happen again. The megacorp's CEO claimed that he has a duty to protect his employees from aggression by their own clients."
"In response, Prime Minister Edmund Mahon personally guaranteed that this unfortunate incident was a one-off, stressing that Sirius personnel have been welcomed in the Alioth, Arimpox and Di Jian systems. He added that the Alliance Defence Force is

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Detective Erik Gunnarson has claimed that the Winking Cat thief has something planned for the weeks ahead.
"After our investigation into the Jokers' Deck gambling circle, Wolfe and I were hired to track down their stolen ceremonial playing card. The good news is that we now have the card in our possession. We can hardly claim credit, however: it was posted to us by the one who stole it!"
"The ancient joker card arrived via a courier service, with no data as to its point of origin. But the playing card now has text stamped on the back, which I'm convinced is intended to be a public message."
"It simply reads 'The hunt is on!' and is followed by two sets of numbers:
'1, 2, 3: 16th to 30th'
'4, 5, 6: 23rd to 6th'.
At the bottom is a drawing of – you guessed it – a smirking, winking cat's face."
"It's speculation, of course, but some of these numbers must be dates.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A rogue Aegis Defense force has initiated conflict with Taurus Mining Ventures in the T Tauri system.
The megaship Musashi is commanded by Aegis's chief military liaison Admiral Aden Tanner, who made this announcement:
"The Hind Mine asteroid base contains proof that Salvation's unlicensed anti-xeno weapon is intentionally designed to provoke the Thargoids, and therefore endangers us all. As Taurus Mining Ventures refuses to cooperate, we have no choice but to obtain the evidence by force."
"This may be our only opportunity to discover Salvation's true ambitions. I urge all independent pilots who have fought alongside Aegis to help us complete this vital mission."
Patience Middleton, a spokesperson for Taurus Mining Ventures, responded:
"This is an illegal attack that jeopardises the important work we are undertaking on behalf of Salvation. It is in the galactic

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Core Dynamics breakaway faction created by ex-CEO Jupiter Rochester has survived, by gathering believers in the corporate rule of the Federation.
Conrad Sterling, political journalist for Vox Galactica, published this report:
"With its military forces defeated in February, and its leader found guilty of mass murder and imprisoned for life, Jupiter Division should now be a footnote in the Federation's history."
"Yet in recent months it has steadily grown, retaking control of HIP 54530 and several neighbouring systems. Its megaship, Victory's Forge, even managed to repel Federal troops and remains under Jupiter Division's command."
"There is much speculation about the underlying reasons for this. Alongside general unrest with the Federation's current policies, there is a rising interest in Rochester's grand vision – replacing democracy with corporatocracy – among those wishing to see

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We've got more WCA-inspired goodness to share. DefianceIndustries polished up and shared three new ships in his cartoon texture style this afternoon. The first is the Kilrathi capship model that gets used for numerous different roles in the series. We also get a gorgeous Dralthi and the exclusive Sabre. Every ship in the show looks so gorgeous - they're a dream to look at, and it's great to see the designs put to good use here!

A few more animated ships for the collection - First up is the Kilrathi Omni-ship. Regardless of the role it's playing, I think it's one of the cooler Kilrathi designs. I had to arbitrarily derive a scale for it since the source material is all over the place on it, so I estimate it's slightly larger than an Exeter for a small destroyer/carrier hybrid - at least that's what I scaled the windows to (assuming an average Kilrathi is around 8 feet)First - The Universal Kilrathi

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

UnboxingHands has done an unboxing video for Wing Commander. I like these types of videos because Wing Commander arrived before modern YouTubing, and these are such fun games to open up! A couple things caught our eye in this case. It's the Amiga version of WC1, which isn't vastly different than more common iterations, but there are a few unique elements such as the styling on the floppy disks. It also comes with the nice single-sided fighter blueprints. It's got some funky music in lieu of a voice track, but I really like the video editing technique he employs: after zooming in on each screenshot on the back of the box, the clip cuts to an animated in-game version of that sequence. It's a nice effect!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's another interesting chapter in the tragically funky series of EA advertisements for the 3DO. We've previously reported on the prints that used a dead fish, cubic lard and fancy pastries to sell Super Wing Commander and Wing Commander 3. RetroDetect has recently posted pics of a whole EA Lard booklet that includes promos for both WC games, among other offerings for the console. There's no telling if the system would have been more of a success if the marketing firm here would have gone with slightly less disgusting subject matter, but at least the games were awesome! You can find the other pages here.

#3doThursday is cool & its fun.... But dont ever try to put a #3do up your bum! Instead, lets take a look at this product booklet featuring some Electronic Arts Lard!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Origin programmer and tester Allen Jackson shared this awesome artifact from the golden days at OSI: a job application to work at the company. It's pretty neat to see exactly what they asked (was it a big issue at the time to have applicants when recalled from a layoff?). This is also a pretty stark reminder of what a different era it was. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any major company in 2020 that even accepts a paper application. I'm sure we have visitors to the site today who've never seen one before. And now it's pretty easy to find open jobs and submit from anywhere in the world. Back in the '90s, how would it even work to apply from out of state? Could you call them up and get them to mail you a form? Maybe it could be faxed? As Google moves to exclusively video interviews this month due to the coronavirus, I wonder if they'd have entertained an audio phone interview?

Some might

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

The Anniversary Celebrations keep rolling on, and today, we have a very special opportunity for you, Captains. We've teamed up with Steelseries to create a very limited series of incredibly cool looking Star Trek Online headsets, and you can win one right now! Enter via the contest entry below, and you could win one of three of these amazing headsets, and a Discovery Operations Pack! This contest is only open to US residents at this time. Enjoy unprecedented sound quality, and represent your love for Star Trek Online at the same time! Star Trek Online: Legacy - SteelSeries Arctis Pro Headset Giveaway .share-footer a { margin: 20px 10px 10px 0; background: url(d7afaaa14e96d0d973f76157ae31ec5b1466398539.png) no-repeat 0 0; opacity: .5; display: inline-block; height: 60px; width: 60px; padding: 0; border: 1px solid transparent; -webkit-transition: opacity

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Wing Commander fans have a special affinity for the actors and actresses who starred in the FMV WC games of the 1990s. Some of them have retired from the limelight while others continue to have vibrant acting careers, but most are not nearly as accessible as some of the current crop of celebrities who are well-connected on social media. One of a the few notable exceptions is

Tom Wilson

, who continues to maintain an engaging and funny

vlog presence on YouTube

. He's been especially active lately with half a dozen updates this past summer. His posts can range from him performing a song all the way up to following the Maniac along on a hike. Check out a couple examples below and find more

here

.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's a lazy Sunday here at CIC central, which is a great opportunity to get ahead before starting up

Righteous Fire

. All the fancy new gear is not cheap, so LOAF's strapped into the cockpit to earn some extra credits!

Sunday afternoon grind in a special bonus All Wings Considered hangout! Join me for Privateer and conversation.

Quote from Star Trek Online News-Bot

It’s time to return to 2410, Captains. Our multi-part, expansion-over-time that began with Age of Discovery and ended with Rise of Discovery is now complete, and with it we’ve brought a ton of excitement to Star Trek Online. A entirely new faction, a revamped tutorial experience, and six new episodes starring beloved actors Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, and Rehka Sharma brought the story of Star Trek: Discovery to Star Trek Online. We gave experienced players more to do with updates like Random Task Force Operations, Tier 6 Reputations, and Personal Endeavors. And we unleashed the Featured Task Force Operation system, bringing new stories and experiences to our game more often. Now, we’re moving back to our main setting, the year 2410. And we’re bringing Anthony Rapp with us. Rapp, known to Star Trek fans as Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery, is the star of our next content update, Star

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The first three pages of EmuMusicFan's newest Freedom Flight comic have now been posted! These form the beginning of the story's second chapter. The first chapter followed Lord Ralgha nar Hhallas' interrogation. Chapter 02 is a decidedly different take!

Be sure to check out all the original pages if you didn't catch them last year!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Hey, who wants some new Cybot ships and scenes? They might be a little weird, but they're always amusing and some are available now to help kickstart your project! New downloads include the Niven Base and Steltek Assortment. Be sure to let Cybot know if you find any of these designs useful!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we've got an unusual stealth GOG deal that slipped in under the radar. Most Wing Commander discounts are tied to a theme or event, such as a "Sci-Fi Sale" or "Spring Sale," but we can't seem to find a corresponding association this time. We also have a much more limited selection of WC games that are included: Wing Commander 1&2, WC3 and Privateer are each marked down 75% to $1.49 for the next week. We'll happily take anything we can get though!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AllTinker has a new bit of Wing Commander joy to share today. He's remastered the iconic Wing Commander opening track. It's a beautiful tune to listen to on its own, but this also supports his Confederation enhancement of WC1. Give it a listen below!

Hi folks, I've been battling against real life a little but work continues on the code & art. I have something slightly different to preview today - another side-project to the side-project; can't help myself - I've mentioned before that I'm interested in having General MIDI versions of the earlier game soundtracks, which would allow rendering with soundfonts or GM modules like the Sound Canvas (ala Privateer, WC3 etc.). In working towards that, rather than going directly from MT-32 to GM, I've been pulling apart the music and reorchestrating it in a more traditional sense first. Here's the first track I feel is ready enough to demonstrate:

I've made a

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

A lot of people (one guy on Discord) have been asking what the correct emblem for the Empire of Kilrah is. So let’s have a thread and find out!

Wing Commander I has matching emblems for factions on every ship. The Kilrathi have a red cat skull which we get to see close up thanks to the beautiful box shot of a high resolution Dralthi wing.

The ships are so low resolution that they’re just dots in flight, but you can pick them out every time. You can see the skull very clearly on the WC2 demo Bloodfang, which is its last appearance.

And there’s a black one on the Imperial Guard troops in The Secret Missions 2!

As an aside, we NEVER got a high res version of the WC1 Confed roundel. You can see it twice on the Drayman here. It looks like a TNG comm badge or maybe three ships orbiting a sun?

Now, this is the broad answer to the question. This is the emblem of the empire itself, the grouping of all eight clans.