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New Episode - Secrets This is Admiral Kensington. I have a special assignment for you. A Klingon raiding party attacked one of our science stations near the Delta Volanis Cluster. Please assist them in any way you can. A Klingon raiding party attacked a Starfleet research facility near the Delta Volanis Cluster, but left survivors and took nothing. The station is damaged, however, and the staff could use your help to resume normal operations. Be on your guard – this could be a Klingon ruse. Be ready for anything. If things get desperate, one of Starfleet’s top-secret vessels is in the area and can assist if necessary. Get on this as soon as you can – Starfleet Command needs to know what the Klingons are up to out there. Secrets is the first episode available to Discovery-era Captains after completing the tutorial. It will also be available to 2409 and TOS-era Captains as a historical

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I’m not going to lie to you…this war is not going well for the Federation. Every day, the Klingons gain ground, and every day, we fall a little further back. Well, not today. Today, we stand, together, as Starfleet. Today, we prove that our ideals can withstand a hostile invasion force. I’m honored to serve with each and every one of you. Go out there and make me proud. You were just a cadet, stepping out into the cosmos for the first time, when the Klingon War broke out. Now it’s come home. In “Downfall,” the second episode of Age of Discovery, you’ll find yourself standing in defense of Starbase One, in what could be her final battle. Enemies, including Ju’la herself, are going to attempt to take this last bastion of defense for themselves. Only you can stop them. Downfall is the second episode available to Discovery-era Captains after completing the tutorial. It will also be

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While you’re settling in to the Age of Discovery, you may have noticed some changes to the game’s loading screens and UI, especially if you’re a Discovery Captain. That’s the work of our awesome UI team, including newcoming Joanna Gianulis, who created a brand new, Age of Discovery loading screen based on the show’s title sequence! Joanna also made the title sequence into wallpapers for your computer or your phone, which you can grab right here. Enjoy! .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 .3s; transition: opacity .3s; } .share-footer .TI { background-position: 0 20%; } .share-footer .YT { background-position: 0 40%; } .share-footer .YT {

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A new voyage of discovery is about to begin, Captains, and we’re proud to share it with you. Interact with Cadet Sylvia Tilly, face off against the sinister Ju’la, and take your first steps into a new era when Star Trek Online: Age of Discovery launches on October 9th, and later this fall on Xbox One and Playstation 4. You’ll be able to bring your reputations to a new tier, compete in random Task Force Operations, and experience the beginnings of a brand new story that will have ramifications for all of Star Trek Online. The Age of Discovery is coming, very soon. .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 .3s; transition: opacity

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We’re back from a wonderful Star Trek Las Vegas! We had five days of meeting our fans at our booth, putting on panels with some of our favorite Star Trek Actors, and enjoying exciting announcements like Patrick Stewart returning to the role of Jean Luc Picard. If you followed along with our Twitter, you were kept up to date with all the action all week, including our Sunday Age of Discovery panel. But even if you didn’t – or if you just want to experience it all again – we won’t let you down. The fine folks at Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast recorded our epic panel with Mary Wiseman and Rekha Sharma, and you can check out the audio from that panel, and interviews with Lead Systems Designer Jeremy Randall and Lead Designer Al Rivera, right here: Thanks so much to the fine folks at Priority One for bringing us this audio, and especially to Elio Lleo, our incomparable

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AnonymousFox talks about some of the new assets that are being created for Aftermath.

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Last week we saw Maiden Ariana upgrade a vintage computer in order to get Wing Commander 3 running. That one was a big hit, so she's moved on now to Wing Commander 4. I personally really like going through the install menus. They evoke so much of the anticipation of opening and installing a brand new game for the first time. WC4 was the first game in the series to have a fully graphical in-universe interface to walk you through the setup, and you usually only ever see it one time for obvious reasons, so it's a nice throwback to see here. Thanks to all the upgrades put in place for The Heart of the Tiger, The Price of Freedom just works in this case. A good chunk of the middle is rewatching the intro, and if watching a video of it playing on a 15" monitor leaves you wanting more, check out ODVS' remaster of that cinematic here. You can also follow Ariana's Twitch for some WC3/4 streams in the

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The Wing Commander movie club enjoyed True Lies! It holds up very well, although a lot of what we remember as having been ridiculous action actually seems pretty mild compared to the average blockbuster today. We already talked about the music in the intro post but we did notice one interesting Wing Commander connection in the opening credits: the film's production designer was Peter Lamont. James Cameron would famously tap him again for Titanic… and then he would go on to work for Chris Roberts on the Wing Commander movie! You can read more about his work (and watch an interview) in our memorial post.

Sully didn't appreciate the little black dress; that's his look all the time!

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Greetings WingNuts,

Epic war movies haven't fared great with the Wing Commander movie club so far; a lot of classic air combat movies have come off as either extremely slow (The Dambusters, Battle of Britain) or kind of silly (Midway). Surprisingly, Tora! Tora! Tora! didn't share that fate. It's an incredibly literal telling of Pearl Harbor that abandons any pretense of character drama but it still reads as an impressive spectacle and a story that feels worth telling. The fact that it was so significantly a Japanese and American co-production also makes the film itself an interesting part of the event itself!

The Wing Commander movie references Tora! Tora! Tora! Immediately as it starts, basing the Pegasus attack on the Pearl Harbor bombing. Here's how some of the angles of the attack compare. The movie was actually intended to reference Pearl Harbor even more by opening with a 'fake out' that would've

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander Movie Club has visited the danger zone and lived to tell the tale! We found that while Top Gun remains a striking movie full of fast action, striking cinematography and endearing characters… it also isn't much of a story. The scenes we remembered from years past were still wonderful but the lack of connective tissue seemed more apparent today. There's not really a character arc for Maverick: the film seems to set him up for a decision between being a devil-may-care fighter pilot like Iceman and a family man like Goose… and then Goose dies and instead he has to (fairly rapidly) get over his grief. But since the accident isn't his fault and he ultimately just splits the difference (he goes back to the girl AND is still a hotshot pilot!) there's not a very satisfying resolution.

But do you know what other movie has that exact combination of action, cinematography and

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Greetings WingNuts,

We loved Titanic! The film hods up extremely well. It was very easy to write it off as a fad in 1997 but rewatching it today there's no question that its success was well deserved. It's an amazing combination of rewarding character drama set against so much hard work to create a world that even Richard Garriott could learn something. And it certainly didn't seem like it was three hours long! James Cameron's position as king of the Hollywood universe is deservedly still secure today. (A note relevant only to this group is that Titanic opened one week before one of our previous films, An American Werewolf in Paris. And it was much, much more successful!)

The big Wing Commander connection was production designer Peter Lamont who deservedly won an Oscar for recreating the Titanic for the film. One of the reasons the movie works so well is that Cameron goes so very deep with his Titanic

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is back from Rylos and we're happy to report that it's still pretty nice! The Last Starfighter is a movie that deserves its cult classic status and if anything a modern viewing finds a more balanced and enjoyable film than it once seemed. It's easy to say that all of the cuts back to the robot duplicate on Earth are getting in the way of what you want to see… but in reality they did a pretty good job of making you appreciate the space action. A movie that's all fighter pilots shooting things wouldn't have come together like this!

For the Wing Commander connections, we have to start with the Gunstar which obviously inspired Glen Johnson's design of the Raptor. The recent 4k restoration of Last Starfighter is stunning and it is full of incredibly clear shots of the computer generated Gunstar. We've picked a few favorites here and have included an appendix

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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is ready to turn in our collective multipass! We watched The Fifth Element last week and it's just as strange and beautiful an experience as many of us remember from our youths. It represents such a fascinating moment in our culture when such a strange, not-like-anything-else film could get a blockbuster budget and a huge theatrical release. Whether you're interested in discussing deeper meanings or if you just want a completely unique audiovisual experience it's one heck of a film.

We loved the movie but there aren't many Wing Commander connections to report! We talked all about the cinematography of Thierry Arbogast and his team in the intro post and it was certainly on full display here. There's no question that his incredible talents are what made this movie look so incredible… and they're a significant reason why Wing Commander remains so

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We were pleased to see that everyone in last week's Wing Commander movie club enjoyed The Exorcist! As the series goes on we're happy for excuses--however flimsy--to show movies that aren't so bent towards space opera. In lieu of any forced commentary, we are instead going to use this space to introduce the other three movies that are coming from Privateer storyboards: Heaven's Gate, Ishtar and The Last Temptation of Christ! (Though of course Heaven's Gate already earned a slot for being referenced as a star system in Wing Commander II).

Sully really wants split pea soup.

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Greetings WingNuts,

We weren't going to do after action reports for movies that were just referenced by Wing Commander… but there's so much we noticed in The Empire Strikes Back that we decided to keep it going and at least post what was referenced each week. Plus, we have to have a place for the weekly Sully picture!

Here's the "we found them" line that's quoted in Wing Commander Prophecy:

Hoth itself gets a nod on Wing Commander Academy. Mark Hamill again faces a snow cave in The Price of Victory:

And then there's the appearance of the Super Star Destroyer echoed in Prince Thrakhath's enormous dreadnought. Like the 22km Wing Commander ship, fans have spent decades bickering about the length of the SSD (it's 19 km).

Darth Vader famously executes an officer during the attack on Hoth. Dr. Forstchen first has Prince Thrakhath do the same in End Run…

“Now tell me this, Jamuka,” Thrakhath said quietly,

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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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After Action Report: Star Wars

Greetings WingNuts,

It shouldn't be a surprise that we had a blast with Star Wars! The movie holds up exactly as well as we hoped it would… the worst anyone could say was that the first act was a little slower than we remembered, and that's nothing now that we've seen The Dam Busters! Our overall review was that the original Star Wars deserves its reputation for both inspiring later movies and… video games.

It would be impossible to catalog every single thing in the Wing Commander canon that was influenced by Star Wars; the series itself is at its heart an attempt to create an interactive Star Wars experience! But we have collected some fun connections from the screening to list out here… be sure to share your favorites on the forums to add to the legend!

To start, here are some of the items we mentioned in the initial article. In the Dam Busters analysis we compared Wing

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Greetings WingNuts,

It's no secret that most of us love Star Trek and we generally felt that The Motion Picture is a film that becomes more and more compelling the older it gets. What was once decried as slow and moody now feels impressive and relevant. And it's really the only of the Star Trek movies that directly follows the characters as they were in the original TV show.

The Wing Commander connection this time around was that Chris Roberts asked Wing Commander composer George "The Fatman" Sanger to pattern the original game's music after Jerry Goldsmith's spectacular Star Trek The Motion Picture score. I have a tin ear, but others in our party did claim they could hear the inspiration! Here are the main themes for both if you'd like to compare them yourself.

Another connection between ST:TMP and Wing Commander is that the film was Syd Mead's first project as a concept artist for film. He was

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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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Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club found the Search for Spock worth the effort! It sometimes feels like Star Trek III gets a bad rap just to fit together the 'even good, odd bad' Star Trek movie joke. The reality is that it only ever falters at the very end with a final ten minutes of dull Vulcan resurrection that loses more and more meaning the further we travel from the tastes of 1980s fandom. But everything else, what a movie! And not only that, Star Trek III takes the world of Star Trek II and twists it into what it will become for the next thirty years. The 'tone' of Star Trek TNG and its spinoffs is born in Search for Spock's first act… as are a huge number of the models, sets and ideas (including the modern Klingon) that will go on to fuel an enormous franchise. And a rousing story, to boot.

The big connection to Wing Commander is that Star Trek III was the origin of the