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Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Exciting news for one of our sister communities: Electronic Arts has released a mountain of Command and Conquer material for fans to explore including source code, modding access and never-before-seen footage of games while they were in development! You can read all of the details in their announcement.

Source code has been posted to Github for the original game, Red Alert, Renegade and Generals Zero Hour! They've also enabled mod support for several games via Steam Workshop and put out this fascinating video:

Once upon a time, Wing Commander and Command & Conquer, both beloved by fans, were effectively friendly rivals with Electronic Arts pitting Origin and Westwood against each other to develop a space MMO. That battle ended tragically for both studios! But it's nice to see a dedication to putting some of that history right… maybe we could see some archival Wing Commander material someday!

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The campaign to update Brewer Corporation's Trailblazer fleet has concluded in the Minerva system.
Thanks to the efforts of independent pilots ferrying shipments to Minerva, a total of 5 additional Trailblazer megaships will be placed in strategic locations on the fringes of the core systems, providing a hub of tradable materials and services for early colonies.
Brewer COO Mark Rennik remarked on the campaign's success:
"Once again, we have received widespread support and confirmation of our efforts, which is both humbling and inspiring. It is obvious that there is great appetite for breaching the latest frontier to establish new colonies, further expanding humanity's sphere of influence in our section of the galaxy."
The Trailblazer megaships are expected to be deployed in the coming weeks.
Participants can now collect their rewards from the initiative.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

This is a fascinating little discovery that is about thirty years in the making: a previously unknown promotional album that includes music from Wing Commander III and several other Origin games! It's called Electronic Arts Music Sampler Volume Two and it was produced in 1995 to promote EA's ever-increasingly-professional music departments across four studios. In addition to Wing Commander III, it includes tracks from Bioforge, Wings of Glory, Pacific Strike, Ultima VIII: Pagan and the unreleased Prowler!

Here are the eight Origin-related tracks:

3. Credits/Theme (Wing Commander III) - George Oldziey & Randy Buck

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

4. Big Band-O-Rama (Pacific Strike) - Paul Baker

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9. Medley (Wings of Glory) - Lara Barratt

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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 Silent Running (1972) which inspired... maybe nothing in Wing Commander 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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Greetings WingNuts,

We all love Alien! Is there anyone that doesn't love Alien? It holds up so well today, despite how 'slow' the first half is compared to movies today. But you aren't bored slowly creeping through the Nostromo's empty rooms for minutes and minutes at a time… if anything, the quality of the visual world building around you makes you wish you could stop and look around. And then once the movie gets going, you're in.

The biggest connection to Wing Commander is that both Wing Commander II and the Wing Commander movie referred to the Ripley character in adapting Angel. In both cases, it's clear what they were trying to do… but making your love interest a stronger female character doesn't approach Alien's treatment of Ripley as the lead. In the case of Alien, the character wasn't gendered until casting, leaving her the sum of her actions. Wing Commander couldn't really get there!

Here's John

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

We may have taken our time to get here this year, but Wingnuts have cast their votes and we now have the winners of our annual fan project contest! We once again had an excellent slate of nominees but a handful of undertakings rose above the rest. Sometimes we also have so many high achieving projects that it's not clear we have one winner, so we end up with multiple top selections. This year is one of those cases! So without further ado:

Our first winner for Fan Project of the Year 2024 is WC4 Remastered! Excitement remains high for the fan remake of The Price of Freedom, and the steady drumbeat of comprehensive updates gives Wingnuts high confidence that their patience will be rewarded (in about a year)!

Our second top spot is taken by the combination of AllTinker's two contenders: Originator and Confederation! The Originator tool is a phenomenal program used far and wide to hack into WC code to

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

But wait, there's more! For the first time, we also asked fans to vote this year for the greatest fan projects of all time. We reached back into nearly thirty years of community history to come up with five worthy contenders. This was a very interesting experiment in nostalgia and recognition, and while every nominee was evocative in its own way, the results speak for themselves:

Perhaps with little surprise, we are happy to announce our Hall of Fame winner is Klavs! It's been not quite a year since Adam Burch's passing, although we can say definitely that this untimely shock was not the reason for his boost in the polls. Rather, his decades of dedicated service to the community and legacy of assets left to the fans make him a clear winner. Once again, Klavs, we salute you.

We weren't aiming to give a runner up for this, but through the vote tallies and discussions with the community, it became

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

A Reddit user named BackpackTwo recently posted something pretty interesting to the r/wingcommander subreddit: a photo of some costumes from Wing Commander Prophecy! They explained: "I worked at Origin in the late 90's around the launch of WC Prophecy so I had a few pieces of memorabilia that i had forgotten about when cleaning out the closets." Lucky person! These are Terran Confederation Navy uniforms worn by Seth Walter as comm officer 1st Lt. Anderson and Mindy Hester as science officer Lt. Commander Finley. A great, high resolution look, especially valuable for anyone interested in making their own costumes!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The Wing Commander movie club has swung back around from the outer planets to finish Silent Running. This week we're going back to World War II for the 1958 submarine film Run Silent, Run Deep. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

Run Silent, Run Deep is a 1958 action/war film about an American submarine captain desperately pursuing revenge against the Japanese destroyer captain that sunk his last boat. It stars Burt Lancaster as Clarke Gable as the captain and XO at odds over the battle and alongside the previous year's The Enemy Below helped establish the standard beats for a submarine movie. It was directed by Robert Wise who would go on to helm Star Trek: The Motion Picture and it was also heavily referenced in Star Trek's Balance of Terror.

As we discussed last week, Run Silent, Run Deep is almost certainly the movie Chris Roberts meant to reference when he described Wing

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

One of the most rousing debates in the history of the Wing Commander fandom is over Privateer 2: The Darkening's name. Many remember that the game was announced as 'The Darkening' and only became a Privateer game close to its release. We aren't here to relitigate the debate over whether that was right or wrong; instead, we're going to try to answer a specific question: when were the multiple decisions to change the name made? To do that, we've put together a brief timeline of Privateer 2's development that we believe tells the story.

Privateer II: Dark Side - Mid-1994 to February 1995

Producer Erin Roberts pitched what would become Privateer 2: The Darkening to Origin in mid-1994. Erin had joined Origin several years earlier, coming from his home in England to Austin to assist his brother finish development of the original Wing Commander. He would go on to join the famed Strike Commander team as

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The first wave of newly colonised star systems has been labelled a 'remarkable success' by observers from across the core systems.
Harlow Nassry of the Federal Times wrote that "the raw potential of these new ports and settlements has inspired migration, with a notable number of displaced refugees from Sol boarding colony ships to start fresh."
Colm Tornquist of the Imperial Herald noted the "considerable opportunity offered by Brewer Corporation's support system for independent system colonisation," remarking that "these fledgling populations are potential candidates to accept the Empire's benevolence."
Meanwhile, Irfan Karim of the Alliance Tribune suggested the "commercial enterprise offered by these system architects is truly impressive. One wonders just how far this new frontier will expand, given the industrial potency of these trailblazing communities."
Brewer Corporation has released

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Sad news: Game Developer is reporting that veteran Origin artist Thomas Lee has passed away after a battle with cancer. Early in his storied career, Mr. Lee worked as an artist on a range of projects from The Sims 2 to Final Fantasy IX. Later, he entered the business side of the industry as a development executive where he was fondly remembered. And his game career started in our universe!

In March 1994, Origin was staffing up to cover the unprecedented development needs of the Wing Commander III project. They were desperate for artists, TDAs, quality assurance personnel and more. One of their advertisements caught the attention of Thomas Lee's brother, James Lee, at William Paterson University in New Jersey. James applied for a job as an Advanced Graphics Specialist and during the hiring process ended up getting his brother the same job on the strength of his experience with ALIAS.

The Lees' job was to

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The topic of Wing Commander IV's texture files recently came up and a question came up: what's that spiky logo on the side of the Vindicator? If it's intended to be the Border Worlds logo, why is it so different from the circular 'phoenix' seen elsewhere?

The answer is that it's a roundel which represents the Union of Border Worlds Navy! It differs from the more familiar Border Worlds logo which represents the entire Union of Border Worlds. Compare the United States flag to the roundel used on military aircraft, for instance:

The Border Worlds roundel is actually more common than you think. It appears throughout the game, including on many Border Worlds ships (including all the fighters):

It even shows up inside the Intrepid where it's intended to match the FMV... unfortunately the texture is mirrored incorrectly!

It's also pretty distinct in gameflow, where it represents an available mission briefing on

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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 Run Silent, Run Deep (1958) which was one of the sources for the Wing Commander's submarine and crew drama elements. 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!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Greetings WingNuts,

We have watched Silent Running and agree that it's an interesting movie but that it doesn't quite come together (like Wing Commander?). The special effects are incredible, the sets and costumes are excellent, the setup is an excellent story… but it never quite comes together into anything satisfying. A lot of that comes down to the lead, we thought, who ends up being somewhat difficult to root for. It's a movie I'm glad to have seen but it's definitely more cult than classic.

This will be a short report, though, as the movie had no known creative connections to Wing Commander beyond being incorrectly referenced in the film's original treatise. But we did note a few little genre connections! One little coincidence is that both films have acts set in ring systems! Silent Running's director famously used the film as an excuse to do the Saturn special effects he had envisioned for 2001:

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

In a shocking turn of events, the Wing Commander games on GOG have been included in yet another big sale! This month's theme is "Shooter Game Promo," which frankly isn't really trying that hard. This time around everything is a whopping 75% off, or $1.49 per package. That's about as cheap as it gets for these releases! You can find all the games at the links below or indexed here.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Last year, we had occasion to put together a set of working notes on Downtown, celebrating the legacy of a lesser known Wing Commander character to display some of the depth of established lore players might not be familiar with by putting together a thorough in-universe biography and walking through some of the common continuity issues surrounding him. With the recent passing of actor Peter Jason, we thought it would be worthwhile to put together a set of notes on Admiral (or is it Captain?) Wilford.

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 Wilford's character and a discussion of the various changes to the story that have occurred over the years are discussed in further sections below the history.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The Wing Commander movie club is home from the (check notes) Bungo Straights and we can confidently say that yes, the Wing Commander movie does owe quite a bit to Run Silent, Run Deep. This week, we're taking the DEDFLASH space/time cruiser back to the future… the distant future of the original Planet of the Apes! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The original Planet of the Apes sends Charlton Heston to the distant future as a lone astronaut stranded on a… well, planet of apes. Adapted from Pierre Boulle's novel by the brilliant Rod Sirling, Planet of the Apes' mix of clever plotting, allegory and action helped set a new standard in quality for science fiction blockbusters that had previously been treated more like childrens' fare. It's bold and engaging even when the entire world already knows the twist ending!

With regards to the Wing Commander connection, we normally pick movies

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today's a great day! Origin composer George Oldziey has digitally released his second full album of Wing Commander music performed by a live audience! This initial package is available to people who pledged in last year's Kickstarter campaign. The physical CD and vinyl album are still being finalized and should also be available in the near future. For now, existing backers can log in to the update for download links. Everything about George's projects have been an absolute joy to listen to, and this latest release is no exception!

Greetings all. The CD master is about ready to submit for replication. We are currently in the process of deciding on the best way to master the vinyl version. The artwork is complete for both products. We are VERY close to finishing the physical products for volume 2, but in the mean time, here are links to the digital files.

They are in FOUR formats; high

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The Trailblazer fleet announced by Brewer Corporation last month has been deployed to strategic locations on the edges of the core systems.
Described as 'colonisation support hubs,' the Trailblazer fleet provides a bespoke trade market focused on colonisation materials and goods. The first wave of independent colonisation efforts has been described as 'overwhelmingly popular' by Brewer COO Mark Rennik.
The fledgling public arm of Brewer's claim management service has been inundated with requests, and Rennik confirmed that the number of claims had proved challenging. "The speed at which new systems have been settled and expanded is frankly astonishing," Rennik said in a recent interview, "and I'm delighted that so many pioneers have taken full advantage of this opportunity."
The Trailblazer fleet has been deployed to the following star systems:
Trailblazer Dream - HIP 90578
Trailblazer Song -