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Digital archaeology strikes again: we've discovered something we didn't know was missing… and we've had it in our collection all along! The true story behind the Wing Commander Academy Speech Accessory Pack, long thought to be a fan made addon, has been discovered. What we didn't know was that it was an official addon created and released by Origin in 1993.

Backing up: Wing Commander Academy shipped in August 1993 and it included partial speech. If you have a speech-capable sound card (not a given in 1993!) the game will play the taunts of the (five different) Kilrathi AI pilots you can battle. But the responses from your wingmen do not play; they display as text. This always felt a little odd to players familiar with Wing Commander II… after all, four of the five Confederation comm sets, Angel, Hobbes, Maniac and the male space station, were already recorded. However, the reason the wingmen voices

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Last week's meeting of the Wing Commander movie club was a great success! Star Trek VI's connection to Wing Commander may have been slighter than other films we've watched (watch for the after action report on Friday) but it was also a lot of fun watching a film we all love together with friends. And isn't that the point of this whole endeavor in the first place? Next week, however, we're returning to music and to World War II with 633 Squadron (1964)! And as always you are welcome to join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

It's time for more high flying action with the Royal Air Force! 633 Squadron is a fictionalized air combat adventure which pits a squadron of elite Mosquito fighter pilots against a Nazi rocket base. Made in 1964, it's the first air combat movie to be shot in color and represents a new kind of World War II movie that starts to glamorize rather than memorialize the conflict.

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Mac is celebrating his recent arrival on Bluesky with a pair of vertical phone-style wallpapers. They feature the glorious Bearcat and majestic Concorida hanging in space. Hopefully they brighten your day as much as they do mine!

The F-104 Bearcat from Wing Commander IV, descending onto a planet below it from the depths of Space. Model by Hangar B Productions/Adam Burch. Rendering by Mac's Lore.

The TCS Concordia in orbit of Earth with a flight of Rapier-Gs flying in escort. Rapier Models & Textures by Adam Burch.

You can find other various Wing Commander luminaries on Bluesky here.

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The original Sony Playstation turned 30 this week, and fans have been coming up with creative ways to celebrating the milestone. LOAF wrote up his own take on the event with a rundown of Origin games that were made for the system, including two famous Wing Commander titles!

March 1996: Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. Ported from the PC original by Electronic Arts. A solid adaptation but the fantastic 3DO version puts it to shame! Had a fancy localization and big push in Japan but couldn't find an audience.

December 1996: Crusader: No Remorse. Ported from the PC by Realtime Associates. Sorely lacking the SVGA graphics of the PC version. Plans to follow it with a port of No Regret were dropped but an early build exists!

March 1997: Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. Ported by Infinity Entertainment from the PC original. Only released in Japan, this version started life as a Sega CD project. The

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Thargoid Titan Cocijo has arrived in the Sol system, positioning itself in orbit around Earth.
Cocijo's arrival unleashed a devastating regional assault by the remaining Thargoid invasion fleet. In Sol, only Mars High, Galileo and Haberlandt Survey remain functional, albeit damaged, with all other ports knocked offline by Thargoid attack. Farragut battlecruisers FNS Nero and FNS Erebus have been destroyed, while FNS Victory and FNS Trander are marshaling system defence efforts. Thousands of AX fleet vessels have been lost to the initial conflict.
16 other systems were assaulted near Sol, triggering a massive refugee crisis as billions of civilians remain stranded in the region. Rescue megaships are en route to support evacuation efforts.
Starship One has successfully arrived in Eta Cassiopeiae, with President Winters and members of her cabinet on board.
Aden Tanner, military advisor for

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

Almost all rescue megaships deployed to systems near Sol have been destroyed shortly after arrival, Aegis has confirmed.
Eight of the eleven active rescue megaships were ordered to systems close to Sol to help with the expected high flow of refugees and civilian casualties following Titan Cocijo's arrival. But distress calls were sounded within minutes of arrival with the few recovered survivors claiming the Thargoids had arrived in alarming numbers at the precise arrival location.
The following rescue megaships have been lost:
- Federal Haven in Sol
- Rescue Ship Bertschinger in Sol
- Rescue Ship Foerster in Sol
- Rescue Ship Kisseih in Wolf 359
- Rescue Ship Cavell in Alpha Centauri
- Rescue Ship Yoshida in Barnard's Star
- Rescue Ship Seacole in Wise 1506+7027
Two rescue megaships have so far not been attacked and are orchestrating evacuation efforts for Sol and surrounding systems:
-

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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 633 Squadron, a movie Chris Roberts credits with inspiring Wing Commander's score... and a thematic followup to The Dam Busters, our first movie night selection. 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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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander Movie Club has conquered the final frontier! It's safe to say that everyone present already loved Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and our opinions certainly didn't change with this screening. It's a little jarring to notice years later that every set is repurposed from Star Trek: The Next Generation and there are plenty of odd moments that earned our gentle ribbing (like the name!)… but none of them detracted from the whole for us.

The big Wing Commander connection was the shockwave effect which appears in Star Trek VI's opening, destroying Praxis and then shaking Sulu's Excelsior. Wing Commander special effects supervisor Chris Brown credited the effect with influencing the explosion effects seen throughout the movie, particularly in the third act 'broadside' battle between the Tiger Claw and a Fralthi. While some shockwaves are visible in that scene, it's

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Check out this gorgeous render created by Alan Baker. It depicts two Hornet fighters tangling with a pair of Dralthi in an asteroid field. One of the Kilrathi fighters is deftly maneuvered right into the rocks, which results in quite an explosion. The setup reminds me of the Kilrathi Saga intro!

A scene from the computer game “Wing Commander”. Quick Wing Commander render using models by the legendary Adam “Klavs” Burch. Two Hornet fighters fly away from the explosion of a Kilrathi Dralthi on an asteroid, as a second Dralthi flees. As Hunter used to advise, if you get jumped by Kilrathi close to asteroids, try to lure them onto the rocks.

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Who needs a centurion? Now go and perform the list of bizarre tasks I have set for you. Bwahahaha!

Zyxophoj is back with another great Privateer-related surprise: they've created a small patch that adds a set of achievements to the game! The selection of 52 achievements incudes a lot of fun ones which include everything you would expect (scoring kills, progressing in the plot) plus a bunch of clever additions that you'll have to go out of your way to figure out. And scariest of all, there's one for reaching the derelict in a Tarsus! Good luck. You can access the project's GitHub here. Here's a complete list of the achievements:

Tarsus Grind (10/10):
I am speed - Equip an afterburnerOptimism - Have Merchant's guild membership but no jump driveShields to maximum! - Equip level 2 shieldsIt gets easier - Kill another person, forever destroying everything they are or could be"I am become death, destroyer of

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Last week we posted about the lore surrounding the Kilrathi characters in the Wing Commander movie. Since that post we've thought of a few more interesting things to point out… so they're collected here!

Eye See You

The first point concerns Bokoth, the "Kilrathi Admiral". Astute readers noted something in the script when he's first described: he's very explicitly said to have only one eye.

ADMIRAL turns. Its face is scarred, distorted, one eye missing. His plumes, indicative of rank, clan, and battles fought and won, flow over massive shoulders. Small smile creeps over his visage, exposes yellowed canines.

The novelization expands the description, noting that he lost his eye at McAuliffe.

Kalralahr Bokoth turned his long, pale head toward Thiraka. Bokoth's face bore the ravages of the battle at McAuliffe. He had lost an eye in that ambush, and deep scars radiated from the gloomy socket like an improbable

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That's five sorties down: the Wing Commander movie club has polished off 633 Squadron and lived to tell the tale! Unlike -- spoiler warning -- 633 Squadron itself. This week we're going to try a movie that doesn't have a single airplane... or even a spaceship! Join us Friday for a screening of the Oscar-winning civil war epic Glory (1989). You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Glory is a 1989 movie about the American Civil War, following the exploits of one of the first African American regiments, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. The soldiers face racism from their own side with many insisting that black troops are incapable of fighting. But they but prove themselves under fire, ultimately suffering heavy casualties in an attempt to capture Fort Wagner in South Carolina. It is notable for marking a period of increased popular interest in the Civil War (on that coincided with the

CDPR just released new Update for Cyberpunk 2077 ...

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Wing Commander III composer George Odziey has posted a memory on Facebook in honor of the game's 30th anniversary. And if there's one person who deserves to celebrate that milestone it's George--he's remained so active with the fandom and we're expecting the second volume of his orchestral Wing Commander recordings early next year!

Thirty years ago I was living in Austin, TX scratching out a living playing piano gigs, teaching some piano lessons and teaching the jazz band PT at Southwestern University. I happened to bump into sax player/arranger-composer and great guy Paul Baker who told me he'd been hired to score video games for EA/Origin. I was intrigued and thought to myself, "I could do that", having never done it before and barely knowing how to use a computer. Paul graciously accepted a demo cassette tape that I threw together and submitted it to Chris Roberts' development team at Origin who

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Later this week the Wing Commander movie club will be watching Glory, the movie that served as the inspiration for the character of Downtown in Wing Commander II. In preparation, I thought it would be good to collect everything we know about Downtown into an update.. and in the process I learned that I didn't actually understand his intended backstory at all! We've written up as canonical a biography as possible, pontificated on the issues surrounding what is known about the character, detailed his development and collected a healthy archive of behind the scenes material and in-game conversations for your reference.

Character Biography

This writeup is done in the style of a wiki entry and takes into account all existing sources in an attempt to construct a singular story. It does not represent the specific intent of any one author; details on the development of Downtown's character and a discussion of

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The last remaining Thargoid Titan, Cocijo, is now vulnerable to attack following a concerted effort by AX forces.
Thargoid forces have been pushed back from systems around Sol, where Titan Cocijo currently hangs in orbit above Earth. The lack of support from these systems, as with other Titans previously, have left Cocijo exposed to a direct assault.
Aden Tanner, special military advisor to Aegis, provided the following update via all Federal news feeds:
"This is our chance to put an end to the Thargoid invasion once and for all. After two years of struggle, sacrifice and bravery, our pilots have risked their lives once more to protect humanity from the greatest threat our people have ever known."
"We have many pilots still out there – many of which have fought from the very first Titan's arrival. If you're able, they could use your support. Ships equipped with Thargoid Pulse Neutraliser,

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AllTinker has posted a preview trailer for his upcoming Wing Commander patch! The highly anticipated release is expected to be the first accurate slowdown option for the original Wing Commander since... well, 1990! Get ready to finally throw out your low-end 386.

Here's something I'm working on... Wing Commander for DOS has always had ISSUES on anything much past mid-tier 386 machines. I've made an EXE patch which fixes this and other issues - it also adds some new features, including configurable difficulty. On real DOS hardware or DOSBox. Coming soon(TM)!

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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 Glory, a then-recent movie that inspired the character of Downtown in Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi. 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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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club has slipped the surly bonds of Earth with Squadron 633! The movie was a very pleasant surprise: it represents a new kind of World War II movie that began to become popular in the early 1960s that was more focused on action than realism. The result is something less dour than The Dam Busters with plenty of thrills and dynamic characters… but not one so meaningless that its final note didn't bring home an important message about the nature of war! It also features absolutely stunning color aircraft photography showcasing extremely cool Mosquito fighter-bombers.

633 Squadron's score, by British composer Ron Goodwin, was the big item we were looking at in terms of it connection to Wing Commander and we're happy to report that the relationship seems a lot more clear here than it did in The Dam Busters. 633 Squadron's theme sounds much more like Wing

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CountVonSchnaps has posted some cool new art showcasing his adaptation of the Kamrani-class corvette from Wing Commander III and Prophecy! It's a great rework of the design and the little Dralthi silhouette thrown in there for scale is a thing of beauty. Like what you see? You can find CountVonSchnaps's takes on several Wing Commander III fighters here.

As per the latest winner of the poll I am posting my re imagined version of the Kamrani Corvette as seen in Wing Commander III the Heart of the Tiger.

The smallest capital ship the Kilrathi Empire has in use it is often found in pairs, or more, where its potent weapon systems can even pose a threat to large capital ships if ignored.

Armed with 5 dual turrets and a anti ship missile launchers it is a ideal platform for escort, defense and anti fighter duties while its cap ship missile launcher can be very effective during assaults.

Hope everyone like it I