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Thousands of people rescued from captivity within the Thargoid motherships remain isolated under strict medical and security protocols.
Professor Alba Tesreau, head of Aegis, spoke at a press conference:
"I'm relieved to see that the sub-surface extraction missiles are proving effective, especially considering how quickly they went into production. Many pilots are using them to excavate bio-storage capsules from beneath the hulls of the Thargoid Titans."
"Each resuscitated individual has undergone an exhaustive range of physical scans and psychological evaluations. Some are being treated for stress-related conditions and mental trauma, but otherwise they appear to be unharmed. With no clear evidence that these people have been infected or influenced by the Thargoids in some manner, Aegis has sent a number of proposals to superpower governments as they consider the next steps."
Despite this

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The gang at Roberts Space Industries is holding their annual Star Citizen convention this weekend, and they're wrapping events up with a big announcement: the campaign-driven game announced in 2012, Squadron 42, is now "feature complete." This means the core items are in place, and they are entering a new phase of polishing. This is expected to still take a significant amount of time, so the team is not putting a release date out there yet. They have, however, published a very cool new video that highlights the latest in the game's cinematics and spaceflight. The clip even begins with familiar nods to things like their iteration of the Hornet fighter and the Vega System. Chris Roberts says, "We want to make sure that Squadron 42 delivers on the promise of being this generation's Wing Commander," and it does indeed seem like this generation may get to experience it!

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Mac is on a roll with fabulous Wing Commander renders this month, and his latest is a spectacular Super Ferret as originally modeled by Klavs. His new scene is vertically oriented with a lot of hard angles and implied speed. There's also some great interplay between the engine flare, background nebula gases and other light sources. The new image is below, and you can see it assembled with two of his similar pieces as well!

Ferret model by Hangar B Productions. Which now completes the poster series I started way back. Now to see what they'll look like printed.

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Klavs is back to polish his Sabre model again, and he's got a neat new setup here. He's put together an expansive 8K backdrop and then added his own models to it for a very ultrawide wallpaper. It would fit nicely across two 4K monitors with very slim bezels or anchor a higher/wider monitor very well. The ships look slick as always, and the Sabre is especially mean from a head-on perspective!

Fiddling with these models again with a heavily tweaked Midjourney AI background and a LOT of passes to make it look more painterly.

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It's been a while since we've last seen Chronocidal Guy's Excalibur model in action, but the ship is back on track and under construction on his workbench. He's reworked the design in a handful of ways, including rescaling the model to be considerably larger. This has allowed him to add more detail to items like the mounted weapons. It's pretty far along, so hopefully we won't have to wait forever to see the final ship!

I have been busy revisiting this design though, and decided to finally dig in and rebuild the blank sections, add a simple cockpit, and print a slightly larger scale one.

Good progress being made, but the print times have scaled up along with the size, and I'm waiting for the weekend to print the engine modules, since they'll take 24 hours each. The fuselage and wings were both about 36 hour prints.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A large naval squadron has gone rogue in the Shamash system, amid claims of widespread mental instability caused by an unknown signal.
Security forces for the Shamash Future faction were practising fleet manoeuvres, shortly before they turned their weapons against passing traffic. Lieutenant Commander Mackenzie Coates , one of the officers coordinating Fleet Exercise Grey Swan, told the media:
"All crews deployed for the exercise are now ignoring orders and attacking anything within range. The evidence we've gathered suggests they're suffering from violent mania, caused by some kind of mass psychological disturbance. They are still capable of operating the ships, making them a danger to civilians."
"Garrett Orbital outpost reported an anomalous multi-frequency signal during Grey Swan, which also broke through our primary comms network. We think it's related to the

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*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Commanders have been asked to help destroy the rogue Grey Swan pilots killing civilians in the Shamash system.
Military squadrons taking part in Fleet Exercise Grey Swan became irrationally violent following an unexplained mass hysteria that swept through Garrett Orbital during a fleet training exercise. Captain Ulrich Maurer, commanding officer of the San Tu State Network megaship Khonsu Gleam, broadcast the following message:
"Shamash Future's security forces have asked us to help stop the carnage taking place throughout this system. No medical or technological solution has been found for affected pilots, who seem reluctant to leave Shamash. Therefore, to prevent the loss of more innocent lives, there is regrettably no choice but to eliminate every ship in the Grey Swan fleet."
"We are urgently seeking to recruit independent pilots with combat experience. Financial

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The results of an evening of hex editing! This is how Privateer figures the cost of repairs (and the prices for selling damaged components, which is never worth it!).

Every component has a damage rating from 0 (destroyed) to 100 (no damage). Repairs are a percent of the total item value times the damage rating.

The armor is the exception: it has four values (one for each side) and the total amount varies by armor type. It’s also super broken and rolls over so will charge you more for a tiny amount of damage. But the range is so small you never notice while playing!

The one component you can’t buy are the hated maneuvering jets. But from their repair costs we can see they seem to have a total value of 75,000 credits!

The maneuvering jets graphic was actually initially created to be an EMP shield. This was part of a cut game loop that would've let you disable enemy ships (and need such a shield to protect

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Pretty neat discovery by AD: the German dub of Wing Commander Prophecy includes two post-mission attaboys that aren’t present in the English release!

They are both included in the shooting script and the schedule! It’s not some giant missing piece but it’s pretty neat to see more of Ginger’s Rachel… even if she’s speaking German! Yes we are adding the entire German dub to Holovids! You can learn more here and here.

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Fun Privateer 2 background element: Angus Santana has a model of a Bexian public transport balloon on his desk.

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Mac's highly anticipated lore video on the TCS Concordia has been released! The clip has been teased in a variety of forms over the past month, and now you can enjoy the entire episode. It details the extensive history of the vessel from its commissioning in the wake of The Secret Missions 2 through the exploits of WC2 and the Special Operations and finally with her heroic efforts from the WC novels. The thorough narration is complemented by more than twenty minutes of gorgeous fleet footage. It's very informative and visually striking. Don't miss it!

The Rockstar of Confed's Carrier Fleet.

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Vox Galactica's Jade Sanderlyn discusses the successful recovery of people from the Titans and developments at the new Thargoid spire sites.
"When Aegis announced its plans to free abductees from the Thargoid motherships, I wasn't the only one expecting the worst outcome. Turning a core mining missile into a way to extract life-support capsules from the Titans sounded extremely risky. And even if it worked, what state would these poor people be in after such a horrific experience?"
"Much to my relief, the scheme is working. Many thousands have now been brought back to civilisation, and seem to have suffered few ill-effects. Wisely, all are being kept under strict quarantine while a battery of medical tests are run on them. But I understand that, in most cases, abductees are permitted to communicate with their friends and families - most of whom never expected to hear from them again."
"Another

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As we mentioned last month, LOAF, AD and team are working through an exhaustive overhaul to the CIC's original video archive. Our Holovids video index was pretty great for its time, but this takes the concept to an entirely different level. Right off the bat, you can see how branching plot choices work along with alternate video clips and dialogue script. With that text, you can understand exactly what was being said, even through the muffled parts. Alternate language French, German and Spanish editions are also included as are alternate quality sources where available. Plus, there are an enormous number of behind-the-scenes clips, deleted scenes, reviews and more. Want an extensive array of print reviews? That's included too! If that wasn't enough, a complete rundown of in-flight comms from both the story and gameplay are now available. Incredible! Today's update is all about Privateer 2,

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The rapid evolution of Thargoid barnacle matrix sites into colossal spires has sparked intense scientific scrutiny and concern as to their purpose.
Dr Maximo Fonseca, the Allied scientific liaison to Aegis, discussed recent developments in an article for The Empirical:
"There's no doubt that these twisting, biomechanical towers are important to the Thargoids. Each site is defended by highly aggressive drones, including a new type designated the 'Banshee'. Larger Thargoid vessels also routinely come and go, in a manner similar to ships docking with an outpost."
"Some believe that each site is an alien city – a xenopolis, if you will – and that this marks the start of a colonisation programme. But I believe the Thargoids remain on a war footing. Either way, we are bringing together our finest xenologists to decipher their function as rapidly as possible."
One of these scientists is Professor

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Crazed pilots that were killing civilians in the Shamash system have been eliminated.
The local security force vessels participating in Fleet Exercise Grey Swan were exposed to an anomalous signal, which then circulated through the fleet's networked comms. This apparently triggered a violent mania that caused them to attack passing traffic.
Captain Ulrich Maurer of the megaship Khonsu Gleam announced that an operation to eliminate the threat had concluded:
"All Grey Swan ships have now been targeted and destroyed. Though tragic, this action undoubtedly saved many thousands of lives and has brought peace to the system once more. San Tu State Network, in agreement with Shamash Future, has agreed to reimburse all independent pilots who took part. Payments are available for collection at the Khonsu Gleam."
Shamash Future confirmed that Garrett Orbital, which was locked

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BOO! From us to you!

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Here's a neat article on the making of The Darkening from a 1996 DK book on multimedia!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

People who have been rescued from Thargoid Titans remain in quarantine, but can soon expect family visits and access to comms networks.
Aegis reported that bio-storage capsules are still being successfully extracted from the Thargoid motherships, albeit at high risk to pilots. Each revived individual has been placed in medical isolation, as per guidance from Aegis specialists.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Corcoran, who coordinates the Alliance's involvement with Aegis, discussed the situation in a session of the Assembly:
"All abductees are being monitored for signs of Thargoid physical or mental influence. So far, I'm pleased to say, these test results remain negative. Therefore, those from Allied systems are now permitted to receive visitors, while remaining under strict quarantine conditions. They are also being granted direct access to comms and public media. I understand that Federal,

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Little discovery: the firefighting truck seen fleetingly in the Wing Commander movie is a rented Saracen tank. Now I have an excuse to own a tank.

More of the truck from AD!

AD: Don't forget to ask for the spray foam kit when you order yours! Off-camera, this vehicle is shoring up the breached bulkhead. It was shot at least twice with multi-cam setups to only show us the tires.

And its cousin, the fuel truck:

AD: I think this also settles that they used the same truck as the fuel truck in the movie, but dressed it differently with extra panels, wheel covers, and more tanks. You can spot it very briefly and a handful of flight deck scenes. You get a decent look at the back of it in an unused angle of Maniac's reckless landing, which apparently almost crashed into the fuel truck.

Concept art from the movie's set folks! You can see it's supposed to be an unmanned repair truck that sprays self-sealing goo

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Today we have a truly incredible find! VGDensetsu shared this piece of art by Greg Winters. It's the source sketch for what eventually became the phenomenal box art for Wing Commander: The Secret Missions on the Super Nintendo. We absolutely love finding stuff like this under any circumstances, but there are some extra quirky elements here. One, it reveals that the first cut of the drawing depicts a more typical brown Salthi. In the final piece, the ship is tinted green, which is an excellent nod to the fact that the SNES version of the game replaces its Jalthi art with a green Salthi model. That's such a cool info bit. And two, this sketch is on the opposite side of a piece of paper with the SNES Wizard of Oz game. Wild! The original piece is up for auction throughout this month.

Greg Winters The Wizard of Oz & Wing Commander: The Secret Missions SNES Original Preliminary Box Art (Seta,