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Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Shipments of precious materials are needed in the Laedla system to build statues honouring the House of Duval.
Archduke Otto Lombardo-Duval made a public announcement to launch the initiative:
"We are all relieved that our beloved Imperial Mother is on the path to recovery. In such times, we must remember how much all citizens owe to the Duval dynasty, whose thousand-year reign has brought peace and prosperity to trillions."
"In honour of Her Majesty the Emperor and all those who came before her, I am arranging for mighty statues to adorn the public plazas of many Imperial worlds. Using the finest quality gold, jadeite and platinum, we will construct impressive monuments to the architects of our glorious Empire."
The Imperial Herald published a related piece by royal correspondent Gudrun Vestergaard:
"Archduke Otto Lombardo-Duval is the son of Prince Baylor Duval,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's probably only really interesting to me, but here's two minutes of the Dorkir VDU footage from the various insert shots done for the Wing Commander movie. I rotated, cropped, and did some minor stabilization on this clip to make it slightly more viewable. The best looking section is about a minute in, but the low quality and partially cut-off shots are due to how it was shot or the source tapes it came from. You can see that it's a bit more WC1 Dorkir-looking than we thought before, because you can't really get a good or clear shot of it from the Blu-ray edition.

LOAF added this image for context:

For comparison, here's the Wing Commander I Dorkir design. The movie version looks like they just elongated the 'cab'. But it's pretty neat to watch a movie so many times and still be able to see a new spaceship.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today dczanik shared a very slick interpretation of young Angel. The design started as a 3D model, but he finally turned it into a more artsy graphic. Let him know what you think at the CIC Forums!

Hey guys! I did a paint over a 3D model I sculpted years ago. It's of a young Angel. Originally I was going to make a 3D model of her WC1 character, but liked the look of a younger Angel. I thought you would enjoy it. Hope you like it! Here's the original model:

It was used for Howard Day's Wing Leader characters. But I really wanted to finish it in the way I wanted it to look so I finally got around to finishing it. And I made a 16 bit look for those that prefer the old pixel graphics:

Here's a few original shots to compare: WC1, Claw Marks, Super Famicon Claw Marks and WC2.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Cybot is back with more wacky and creative Wing Commander designs. These were inspired by the Steltek craft that we see in Privateer. Cybot has taken those design elements and extrapolated them into a whole fleet of ships. If you're working on a project that needs a super powerful alien kick, check them out at the CIC Forums. His threads include download links for copies of your own!

STELTEK fleet ships: have fun with all models in Obj format.

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Greg14 found a really cool video from the inaugural issue of the French gaming mag PC Fun. In November 1994 this would have been one of the first magazines to include CD-ROMs that packed in "multimedia" enhancements like recorded interviews. Chris Roberts and Mark Hamill are included together here, and their responses are all in English with French translations on the screen.

There are some lovely vintage touches to see. The footage is a "postage stamp" - taking up just a quarter of the screen in what's already a classically low res interface. Each answer is prompted by clicking a giant red button with the question on it. And just listen to Chris Roberts talk about how the game will run at 8-10 frames per second in SVGA on a 486/33 - those were the days!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

As construction proceeds on Salvation's Proteus Wave, there is widespread dispute on the issue of eliminating the Thargoids.
An article by Heimar Borichev, deputy editor of The Sovereign newsfeed, has divided public opinion:
"Salvation's latest superweapon is designed to attract and then destroy members of the species we've named 'Thargoids'. If successful, it would wipe them from the core systems entirely. But there are a number of questions that nobody seems to be asking, including this: do we have the right to take such action?"
"What's that, you say? The Thargoids are the aggressors, out to destroy humanity? Or are they just defending historical territory from our expanding presence? Remember, they were navigating space a million years before we were. If a new species suddenly emerged on our worlds and began strip-mining our lands, how would we react?"
"Now, I'm not suggesting we should

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

EmuMusicFan is working double duty this week! To the right he's got another Kilrathi sketch for his growing portfolio. It's his interpretation of a Kilrathi officer from Special Operations 1, Captain nar Raktha.

Even more exciting is a new group read project that EMF is getting started for Wing Commander Freedom Flight. We've done a number of these over the years, but it's been quite a while since the last one. It's kind of crazy to think about, because this is a perfect pandemic activity! It's always nice to get in early on these, so dust off your copies and get ready. If you don't own one, it's easier than ever to purchase a digital edition. It goes for $6.99 at Baen, Apple or Amazon. Discussion will take place on the CIC Forums and #Wingnut Discord, but it's not necessary to engage in any deep analysis. The most important thing is to have fun!

First, please allow me to talk about plant-based

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

A former Neo-Marlinist megaship has been overrun by NMLA terrorists in the Hyades Sector RO-P b6-2 system.
The Steel Majesty was originally owned by the Neo-Marlinist Order of Mudhrid, one of the NMLA's key allies. After their defeat, it ferried many of them to the Marlinist Colonies where they were granted asylum by Minister Aaron Whyte. His faction then made use of the megaship during the civil war in August.
Minister Jean-Christophe Lyon, the current leader of the Marlinism Reformation Party, gave a statement:
"Despite our efforts to arrest any remaining extremists within our faction, a surviving group has gained access to the megaship. Security feeds show they were joined by several teams of well-armed NMLA fighters."
"The Marlinist Constabulary evacuated around half of the Steel Majesty's crew before the NMLA took operational control. Sadly, there is no way to free those still trapped

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last month we reported on the MK Podquest team's exploration of the Warrior King Saga. They spent the summer checking out the various chapters of the bizarre and epic four-part crossover that culminated in Michael Dorn portraying a space viking aboard the Tiger's Claw. Not everyone is into the podcast scene though and some people prefer these types of shows on YouTube. Your requests have been answered, and this episode is now online below. You can also find their commentary on the Warrior King's Street Fighter, Savage Dragon and Mortal Kombat episodes here.

We've reached the end of the Warrior King's journey this week with Wing Commander Academy Episode 8: Recreation, easily the best episode of the crossover hands down. Neal is now fully a Wing Commander guy. Also we messed around with a soundboard on this one so expect a ton of airhorns.

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It's been a month since we last checked in on Dennis Mull's latest Wing Commander finds, and he's been busy adding to the collection all the while. Up first, he's gotten ahold of a European edition of the Prophecy/Alpha Centauri/Red Alert bundle. I love the white box and colorful blended artwork on this one. He's also finally added a Pilgrim Cross to the mix. This one is in excellent condition with a all contents in practically new condition. Dennis was also the winner of a set of CIC coasters at last month's Birthday Party, so it's nice to see those go to a good home too!

Here we see an updated shot of Dennis' Wing Commander shelf. Not bad at all! Keep in mind that most of those duplicate copies are actually variants of the games from different geographic regions, so this is a diverse and extensive collection!

And here's some love for other Origin/Chris Roberts games too!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Here's a funky bootleg shared by Patrick_Patman. The Super/Multi Game bundle is a CD packed with a whopping 808 games. Wing Commander Armada is the clear headliner here, and other notables include Litil Divil, Gateway2 Homeworld, Heimdall 2 and Zool2 (Sonic). The other 803 games are part of a shovelware Game Master collection. "Over 800 of the highest quality games on CD-ROM." I can't vouch for the rest, but at least one included title is fantastic!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Stinger has released his long awaited and highly anticipated update to wcdx! It now fully supports Wing Commander 2 and both Special Operations packs. This means a handful of annoying bugs and incompatibilities have been fixed, thus enabling the Kilrathi Saga version of the game to compete with DOSBox/GOG as the ideal way to play the originals in 2020. This release also includes bonus tools to explore the game's data files and listen to the soundtrack. Grab it below!

wcdx version 2.2 is here! After years of empty promises and unmet expectations, I can finally present to you the next official release of wcdx!

What's that, you say? Version 2.2? But what ever happened to 2.0 and 2.1? Last anybody knew, there was just an alpha that kinda-sorta worked for WC2! What gives?

wcdx gives, that's what gives! Specifically, it gives you Wing Commander 2, and Special Operations 1, and Special Operations 2!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Wing Commander fans have made a wide range of truly amazing patches over the years, and one of the most technically impressive is the suite of upgrades that enables modern high quality graphics, multiplayer and enhanced DVD movies in Wing Commander Prophecy. This is mostly accomplished by applying HCl's Enhancement Package as well as the OpenGL Patch by Pedro, PopsiclePete and team. However, time marches on, computer hardware gets better and operating systems change. This has increased the chance that some particular setup configurations aren't compatible with all of the aforementioned tweaks. Pedro is trying to gauge how many fellow Wingnuts are affected by this in order to help prioritize future work between upgrading these patches or working on his various fan projects. Answering the poll question below will provide valuable feedback - and feel free to follow up with more detail at the CIC

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We'd like to wish Wing Commander 4 actress

Elizabeth Barondes

a happy birthday! Today is her 55th. She

shares

the occasion with Elon Musk, Mel Brooks and Felicia Day. Ms Barondes played popular Border Worlds Lieutenant Colonel

Tamara Farnsworth

. After WC4 she went on to star in numerous TV movies and shows, although it appears she's mostly retired from acting today. The only credit on her resume in the past decade was a role in

Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses

in 2014. Thanks to E. Lee Zimmerman for the

tip

!

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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

IronWolf1970 recently posted this fun little anecdote from the set of Wing Commander IV. The scale of the WC4 film shoot is vast: real sets, tons of extras and lots of practical effects. However, coming hot on the heels of WC3, it often seems like the earlier game got a lot more press and analysis due to the novelty of FMV at the time. The Price of Freedom has a grand setup and much larger group of people that were involved, but the behind-the-scenes aspect wasn't always supersized to match. So that's why even though this is a brief recollection, it's still fun to get a peek into what went down!

IronWolf: My buddy and I were background on Wing Commander IV. It was the bar scene. He got to hang out next to Mark Hamill.

LOAF: Totally cool! Do you know if you're visible in the final cut?

IronWolf: I found myself... big surprise it was at the pool table... lol... I'm the tall blur in the background with

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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,

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

An independent explorer has reported an unusual incident involving a Thargoid vessel, hundreds of light years away from the ongoing invasion.
Commander Renia Rakowski told her story to Vox Galactica:
"I'd been gathering exploration data for weeks without seeing another soul. Boring, I know, but I like a quiet life. As I jumped out of the Wregoe GA-X B3-0 system, my ship rocked violently and I panicked, thinking the hyperdrive had failed. I barely saw it at first, black against the black of space, until its outline glowed. A Thargoid interceptor. Just like on the newsfeeds, but right outside my canopy."
"I've never been in combat before, and my ship carries no weapons anyway, so I thought this was the end of me. My heart was drumming as I stared at the alien, and it stared back like some giant lidless eye. A writhing light lashed out, this rasping howl came over the comms, and then… it left.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Rostov, huh? Guess they didn’t save the Ralari.

In a weird coincidence, the Wing Commander III novelization also names the TCS Victory’s bartender Rostov and makes him a shameless Space Russian in the grand tradition of Ensign Chekov.

There is a lot to talk about here. For one, isn't it odd that they just borrowed Shotglass' setup from Wing Commander I? Is every bartender in the fleet a wounded veteran?

I'll let folks with actual culture decide if "Dmitry Rostov" is a terrible made up Russian name but it certainly is an odd coincidence (?) that it's the same name as a system from WC1... which I can confirm was all over the series bible provided to Forstchen and Keith.

On the other hand, the TCS Leningrad reference is a very deep cut. It's from a brief mention in Freedom Flight where Hobbes reminisces about the time he destroyed it.

But just the implication that a ship named after a Russian city would

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There have been some new developments with the Peacock service this month, and this could affect your access to stream Wing Commander Academy. As you know, Peacock added WCA to its slate of shows back in 2020. Although the series is readily available on DVD for cheap, there are a handful of improvements that make the streaming edition arguably superior, including better music/voice sound balance. A few items fixed on disc were not incorporated, however, and you can read all about these differences here. In 2021 a countdown appeared that implied the show would be moving to a higher paid tier, but this was soon dialed back. The ticker has now reappeared, which suggests it may only remain in its current form until the end of the month. Presumably, the show would remain in either the Premium or possibly Premium Plus category.

On a very much related note, there have also been some big changes in who