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Origin Systems was closely tied to tabletop gaming from the day Richard Garriott founded the company with some of his fellow roleplaying companions; the company even had a partnership with Steve Jackson Games, another Austin legend, in the 1980s which produced adaptations like Autoduel (1985) and Ogre (1986). In a world before dedicated game development jobs like 3D artist had developed, the crossover in jobs between the two industries was significant. Many of the luminaries responsible for the Wing Commander universe, including Warren Spector and David Ladyman, arrived at Origin with bibliographies that included companies like TSR and FASA. Similarly, most of the programmers and designers were pen-and-paper gaming enthusiasts. Chris Roberts famously connected to the company after meeting Denis Loubet at Austin's Dragon's Lair.

Between that shared work and that shared admiration, role playing games and

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I guess you could say we really earned our… wings of Glory… this time! The Wing Commander movie club had an exciting Friday night enjoying the 1989 Civil War epic and now we're ready to go back to the future. So this week we'll be sharing a familiar favorite: Starship Troopers. We've all seen it, we all love it… and we can't wait to talk about it again! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Starship Troopers is Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic novel of galactic warfare and political science lectures. Initially derided as pop culture trash that was distinctly unfaithful to its source material, Starship Troopers has since attained cult status for both its spectacular filmmaking and its unique, cutting satire and anti-war message.

But Starship Troopers came out in 1997, after almost every Wing Commander game was finished. What, exactly, is its connection to

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Super XS was a UK gaming magazine that covered Nintendo systems for six issues between March 1993 and January 1995. It billed itself as "Britain's only Nintendo players' guide" and luckily for us, it existed at exactly the right period of time to have covered Wing Commander and The Secret Missions for the SNES! In fact, the magazine opens with a pretty neat Wing Commander guide… and then replicates it again for Secret Missions! It's full of made up information (Angel is from Paris? Salthi have four lasers?), weird commentary (Iceman and Bossman have stupid names) and great SNES-specific bits like the correctly described 'green Salthi' in the ship guide. It's not a great resource but it is utterly charming, a perfect example of how some obnoxious graphic layout and jaunty prose can create something very special. Special challenge: try to identify three ships from the movie Alien used as background

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The last remaining Thargoid Titan has been destroyed in the Sol system, following weeks of fierce fighting between Thargoid and human AX pilots.
Titan Cocijo entered a meltdown state 24 hours ago, after pilots were able to jam its heat vents to trigger an overload of heat within the giant mothership. Shortly before detonation, the last remaining Thargoid vessels were seen entering portals to leave the system. No Thargoid ships remain in Sol.
President Felicia Winters, speaking from Feynman in Eta Cassiopeiae, announced victory in the Battle for Sol via all newsfeeds:
"This is a historic moment in human history. We have fought together against an alien invader who sought to dominate us. In this moment, today, we have triumphed. The heart of the Federation was the Thargoid's final target, and with Aegis' support the Federation stood firm. Now we look to rebuild, refocus and move forward."

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Drones have been in the news lately so we thought we'd offer a public service by creating a short inventory that will allow you to properly identify any kind of drone you might spot in the night sky! For our purpose, a ship must have been specifically referred to as a drone rather than just acting by a specific definition.

The Steltek Drone

The Wing Commander universe's most famous drone is also its most deadly: the Steltek drone was abandoned in an asteroid field in the Troy System when the Steltek left the galaxy over two billion years ago. In 2669, Grayson Burrows accidentally activated it with an errant missile strike and sometime later his acquisition of a Steltek gun caused the drone to lock on to his ship and begin destroying everything in its path to reach him. Burrows would ultimately assist the Terran Confederation Navy in ambushing and destroying the drone (a feat only made possible thanks to

Happy Holidays, stalkers!

Just before Christmas and New Year's, we are ready to present Patch 1.1. It is the first major patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and it will address over 1,800 issues, including the first iteration of the A-Life fixes. We understand that the size of the patch is huge and the process of downloading will take some time. We would like to thank you for your understanding, and we will work on this aspect as well. So, let’s begin.

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GOG's annual Winter Sale is here! This time the savings work out to 59% off each of the Wing Commanders or $2.45 per package. That's the entire DOS/Windows franchise for under $20! Keep this in mind when you're down to the wire and looking for that last minute holiday gift. You can't go wrong with a download code for Wing Commander under the tree!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The CEO of leading children's toy manufacturer Sandra's Workshop has requested help with parcel deliveries.
Sandra Corrs, the much-loved philanthropist who provides gifts to children across the core systems each year, made a similar request two years ago. Then, with the Thargoid invasion just beginning, her courier fleet was loaned out to help refugee evacuation efforts.
This year a different problem has emerged just as the Thargoid Invasion appears to be over, as Sandra explained to Vox Galactica:
"Our Dolph's Routes transport fleet has been upgraded and fitted to increase delivery capacity. Or, as we like to say in the workshop: 'ferry even more joy', haha! But we've discovered a rather irksome snag: with so many little boys and girls displaced by the nasty alien invasion, it's going to be a challenge finding them all!"
"Even our fleet won't be able to deliver all our presents on time, given

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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 Starship Troopers, a project which both inspired and haunted the Wing Commander movie's production. 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 is marching on! We greatly enjoyed last week's screening of Glory, a movie most of us hadn't seen in many years (or at all). We found it was still very solid, a great example of that just-before-the-blockbusters era that produced movies like Memphis Belle. It's a timeless true story without too much exaggeration, one that it would be good for more people to know today. Matthew Broderick does kind of stick out today as you do not associate him with a heroic soldier today but the rest of the cast, with Denzel Washington in particular, is spectacular. The story of African American soldiers proving themselves in the face of racism remains powerful, though we couldn't help but notice that a great deal of the northern racism is treated as something that happens off screen. SOMEONE doesn't want the regiment to be paid or to fight on the front line… but not

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Last week, we took a look at some Civil War-related Wing Commander references… and we forgot a pretty big one: Special Operations 1's TCS Gettysburg, named after the dramatic Pennsylvania battle that marked a turning point in the war. To cover our mistake, we've decided to took a very close look at some of the confusion surrounding the TCS Gettysburg and the confusingly separate Gettysburg-class cruiser referenced in Freedom Flight. And in order to tell that story, we're going to have to start by taking a look at the TCS Austin.

Gone to Texas

The Secret Missions 2: Crusade (1991) introduces us to the Austin, another Confederation capital ship which is working alongside the Tiger's Claw during the treaty signing at Firekka. The Austin transfers Jazz and Doomsday who serve as new wingmen during the game and it is mentioned throughout the story. The Austin is named after the city of Austin, Texas, home to

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Mac recently got a new Blender tool that adds some gritty lighting effects. It adds a real moody stream of light coming down from the overhead hangars fixtures depicted here. And you get to enjoy it with the Ferret, Rapier and Sabre!

I recently bought an addon called Glared from the Blender Market. I've been so in love with it recently that like they say in commercials for Franks Red Hot Sauce: "I put that s*** on everything.

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The Wing Commander movie club gave our collective heart to a Starship Troopers! With all due deference to the one guy that was still mad that the movie didn't have the power suits from the novel, it's a heck of a movie! Now we're going to end the year by running silent and also deep with a movie you've absolutely heard of spoken in the same sentence as Wing Commander: Das Boot. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Das Boot is a 1981 film which follows the crew of a German U-boat fighting in the Atlantic in 1941. It is known for its realistic depiction of submarine life and for telling a story that isn't about heroes winning glory but ordinary men living through a terrible time. The film's success introduced director Wolfgang Petersen to the world; he would later go on to direct films like Outbreak and Air Force One.

Das Boot was one of Chris Roberts' key influences when making the

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Here's a welcome holiday surprise: George "The Fatman" Sanger has released a new 45-track album covering his work on Wing Commander II and Wing Commander Academy! It's a stunningly curated collection with an excellent introduction from Sanger and extensive notes on individual tracks. It includes not just properly formatted and recorded versions of the final music but also longer versions of tracks that were cut to save disk space at the time. Amazing stuff… and it's just the start! While this release from The Fatman represents his work on the game, curator Xeenmusic has a complete release in the works that covers all of the game's composers. You can learn more and purchase a digital copy on Bandcamp.

ABOUT THIS SOUNDTRACK

My memory of Wing Commander II is foggy and complex, and I am ready to be proven wrong on any of what I recall and say here.

Dave Govett, Team Fat's wizard of and lead composer behind

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We're a little late in calling for nominations, but there's still time before 2024 gets away from us! We're quickly approaching our annual Fan Project of the Year contest, and this year we're adding a twist. We always ask about the community highlights from the prior twelve months, but this time we're adding a Hall of Fame vote where you can separately select from some of your favorite projects from years past. So think back to some of your favorites and let us know what you think! Email nominations to news@wcnews.com and look for the full vote in the near future. Here's some of the past winners to get you thinking:

2023	Wing Loader / WC4 Remastered	Confederation / Originator
2022	WC4 Remastered	Mac's Lore Videos / Gemini Sector RPG
2021	WC4 Remastered	AI Enhanced WC Videos / Wing Leader
2020	AI Enhanced WC Videos	WC4 Fan Remake / wcdx
2019	Prophecy & Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack	WC4 Fan Remake / Wing Leader

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Merry Christmas to all the WingNuts that celebrate… and equivalent wishes for happiness for everyone else, as well! In honor of the holiday, we've collected twelve different Christmas-related items (many from the ghosts of CIC updates past) for you to enjoy. We'd also love for you to share your Wing Commander-related holiday memories–whether you opened a Wing Commander III in your stocking in 1994 or you read all of False Colors while sitting shivering in a Christmas tree lot the day it came out (both me) we'd love to hear about it! We also know that not everyone has a family to spend the holiday… while it's only a small company, you are more than welcome to join our community Discord if you ever need company!

Day One: Xmas Marc's the Spot

One of my very favorite Wing Commander traditions was always the warm and hilarious Wing Commander Christmas renderings that Marc used to create and send for us to

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Origin composer George Oldziey has one more update before the year comes to a close! His plans for next month remain on track to partner with expert audio engineer Bruce Botnick to mix the album. After that, the album should be pretty close!

Greetings all. As we enter the holiday season I think very fondly of how blessed I am that you all supported me in the quest to create volume two of my music from Wing Commander. As I've mentioned before, all the orchestra and choir parts are recorded and awaiting mixing. As I write this I'm sending all the sessions to the legendary recording/mixing engineer Bruce Botnick so that he can gather the enormous amount of tracks involved and do his magic. I will be heading out to LA to mix the music with him during the second week of January. He will be mixing for stereo downloads, vinyl and Dolby Atmos. Once that is accomplished I will return home and begin the

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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 a big one: the first part of Das Boot, a movie that Chris Roberts… absolutely saw. 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,

It's safe to say that everyone in attendance loved Starship Troopers; we're probably all just about the right age for it. It holds up as both a giant fun action movie and a not-too-difficult to decode satire… you can't ask much more from a film! We talked about how the movie compares to other adaptations and mostly just had a great time.

As we discussed in the intro post, Starship Troopers was the 800 pound gorilla in the room when the Wing Commander movie was germinating. The fact that Sony greenlit a $100 million sci fi war blockbuster without any a-list stars created the financing environment that let Chris Roberts sell Wing Commander in the first place… and it meant that his more modest project would be compared to Verhnoeven's masterpiece every step of the way. And when Starship Troopers bombed at the box office, Wing Commander's investors got cold feet and the deal had to be

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Vinman caught a little mention over in a new PC Gamer article. The author spent 2024 deep diving the depths of retro game history and then came up with a list of the top ten winners that are most compelling today. Wing Commander comes up in the category of "First Person Thrills." Check out the full article here!

If skulking about under the stars doesn't sound appealing, how about looking out of a spaceship's cockpit while flying among them? Wing Commander somehow made combining epic action space battles with impressively sim-like flight control and damage modelling look easy. Then they added an incredibly reactive story that continues on whether I succeed or fail a mission. All this complexity, even though it was designed for hardware with barely double-digit CPU speeds and 1MB of RAM.