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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 Die Hard 2 (1990) which informed a very minor character in Privateer. 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!
May
…Greetings WingNuts,
The Wing Commander movie club is pretty universal in this one: Aliens is as close to a perfect movie as you can make! We greatly enjoyed revisiting it last week and it's such a good film that we could probably do it again soon.
In the treatment for the Wing Commander movie, Chris Roberts described it as being like Alien in that the character drama emerges from the fact that everyone is totally cut off from reasonable rescue or help. And he was right, both movies certainly do chase that goal… although the isolation you feel in Aliens is much more effectively delivered. Of course, Aliens' greater legacy to Wing Commander and across most science fiction was the colonial marines. James Cameron's mixing of future space warfare with Vietnam-styled American soldiers feels like a lightning bolt… they would be aped endlessly including in Wing Commander III, IV and Prophecy.
Here are the two
May
…Here's a first: a bit of Wing Commander-adjacent history reported by my wife! She came across a cover story about Freddie Prinze Jr. from the February 2000 issue of Seventeen on an Instagram account called imstuckin.1999 which provides a bit of a look at how he was marketed to teenage girls around the time of the Wing Commander movie! It even quotes Matthew Lillard and notes that they became friends on set in Luxembourg. And great news for collectors: the magazine had two different Freddie Prinze Jr. covers!
During the release of Wing Commander I remember working closely with the "fan girls" running news sites like ours but for Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard… and frankly, it was a lot more interesting way to interact with people than bickering with other gamers! And while we're at it, here's something else to preserve for posterity that doesn't really fit anywhere: a Freddie Prinze Jr. gag
May
…The physical copies of Origin composer George Oldziey's new Wing Commander album are now being mass produced, so Mr. Oldziey has shared a few samples of what to expect. He's posted the finalized graphics files for both the CD and vinyl album art. There's also sample audio copies of the vinyl album so you can get a taste of what it will sound like in long form! Backers can log in to the project's Kickstarter updates for the links.
Greetings all, and thank you for your amazing patience. Both the CD and vinyl products are (finally) in production as we speak. In the meantime I want to share all the cover art as well as the vinyl audio files for you to check out. The vinyl audio is obviously divided into two long audio files which will give you the opportunity to listen to the tracks in sequence without having to click on individual files. One note about the side A file; it starts with a 60 second
May
…Warning: This update contains spoilers for the ending of Privateer 2: The Darkening.
As is often the case, the topic several nights ago on Discord turned to Privateer 2. While talking about the game's conclusion, Chris Reid thought to ask: is there any significance to the 'Arris' in his fake name?
To back up: the reveal close to the end of Privateer 2 is that you are not, in fact, Lev Arris but Vell Ricaud II, the long lost first son of the founder of Ricaud Interplanetary. The head of the Kindred, "Kronos", is really your twin brother Sar Ricaud. The booth system will eventually tell you that Ricaud Interplanetary is "the largest industrial concern in the Tri-System" and there are various small hints that Sar has turned it into the Kindred. When you decode the memory solid later in the game the report says that "also the names Larn Regis and Vell Ricaud occur over 150 times, as well as the name Ricaud
May
…
The Wing Commander movie club has put their seats up and their tray tables in the upright position following the conclusion of Die Hard 2. Next week, we're going a little further back in the past… to 1933 for the original King Kong! King Kong is a massively important film for how it defined the kind of blockbuster movies whose evolution continues to this day… and it's always fun to watch a giant ape wreck things. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
The direct connection to Wing Commander this time around is a fun one: the island that Blair, Grunt and Kulrag crash land on in Wing Commander Academy's Word of Honor is based on the island where Kong is discovered in the original movie (later named Skull Island). USA originally aired a 'Kids Club' bumper with the series' background artists explaining this; unfortunately, it has been lost to time!
There's also a big connection to Chris
May
Having trouble reading PALCOMM.S and COMMUNIC.S37 in WC2? Not anymore! AllTinker has released a new bug fix update to Originator. Other recent updates have improved compatibility with WC3/4, Armada, Privateer 2 and even OriginFX and Strike Commander. If you wanted to peer into the code that makes up WC games, this is the app to get. Download the latest version here.
May
…I was leafing through False Colors the other day and happened to notice an unusual reference I wanted to explore a litle further. This paragraph is from when the Landreich fleet is assembling to recover the Karga and it introduces two of the ship captains thusly:
Diaz would be working closely with the captains of the tender Sindri and the huge factory ship Andrew Carnegie, a Mutt-and-Jeff pair whose names were Dickerson and Lake—Bondarevsky still wasn't entirely sure which one was which. Their commands, though non-combatants, would have the pivotal part in the Goliath Project, the tender serving as a deep-space repair platform for the supercarrier while the mammoth Andrew Carnegie, designed for semi-automated minerals extraction and fabrication work on unsettled frontier worlds, had been pressed into service to manufacture whatever the Kilrathi derelict might be lacking right on the spot.Mutt-and-Jeff
May
Tensions between Yuri Grom and Felicia Winters have erupted into open conflict around the mining system of LP 855-34. The system's platinum rush, triggered by local construction demands, has drawn forces from both Powers. Yuri Grom's representative accused Federal factions of "cornering the market" unfairly, urging loyal supporters to counteract the Federation's aggressive tactics. Combat Zones have appeared throughout the region as pilots clash over strategic mining sites. Pilots supporting Yuri Grom are encouraged to report to The Undeniable station in LP 855-34 to assist in industrial mining operations and help push back the Federal forces.
May
…Origin composer George Oldziey's new Wing Commander album is one step closer. CD production is complete, and the finished units are in his hands! People who pledged for just the compact disc should be seeing them soon. If you are due to get other items such as the vinyl album, these will all be shipped together in a bundle at some point next month. Good things come to those who wait!
Greetings! The WC volume 2 CD's just arrived yesterday. Looks and sounds great! I will be sending these out to CD only backers very soon.Unfortunately, due to longer processing time and popular demand for vinyl, the LPs will not arrive until at least the first week of June. So for those who are receiving both a CD and a vinyl version I'll be shipping those together in one package.
Thank you all for your patience. I know this has been a long process, but I am thoroughly pleased with the results, and hoping you will
May
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 the original King Kong (1933) which was reference for an episode of Wing Commander Academy… and where Chris Roberts' game development career started! 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!
And don't forget our second Wing Commander Cartoon party is early tomorrow!
May
…Greetings WingNuts,
The Wing Commander movie club has changed planes at Dulles! Die Hard 2 was a nice change of pace from our usual fare of war movies and science fiction classics. It holds up very well today, arguably better than any of the later Die Hard sequels. John McClane's path to superherodom seems to already be clearly established but it's pretty subdued compared to what is yet to come. And the overall idea of criminals hijacking an airport instead of a plane remains pretty neat, too!
As noted in the introduction post, the immediate Wing Commander creative connection is pretty tenuous. The original Privateer's character design document calls out Commodore Riesmann as being based on Die Hard 2's Colonel Stuart (William Sadler). Privateer was originally intended to have a 'Confederation versus Kilrathi' main plot which would end with you siding with one of the factions. That was dropped and the
May
This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning! Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of cartoons... that all connect to Wing Commander somehow! Get ready to find out just how much a part of early 1990s culture the Wing Commander series was. You can find details on the shows included as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. Be sure to download the episodes so they're ready to play with the group!
May
…
A world desperate for good news (or at least news that isn't awful) is going pope crazy this week as the Catholic Church has named Leo XIV as the latest spiritual leader in their centuries-long tradition. Of course this has prompted many in the media to ask the big question: what's going on with the church in Wing Commander's distant future? Are there still popes? Well, the first movie spinoff novel, Pilgrim Stars, confirms that there are when Blair explains that the McDanielist (Pilgrim) church's highest office, called "protur", is their equivalent.
"She's not going to McDaniel to destroy it. That planet represents everything she stands for. Someday she'd like to see it as the hub and governing force in the universe, much like Earth is today. Yes, if I know her, she's going to McDaniel to see somebody, a man named Protur Carver Tsu the Second."
"Protur ..." Blair repeated, reaching into his memory.
May
…
The Wing Commander movie club is back from Skull Island and King Kong turned out to be just what we needed (a giant ape). This week, we're going to revisit a true classic: Return of the Jedi, the epic conclusion to the original Star Wars trilogy. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
There's little question that Return of the Jedi influenced Wing Commander: it's spectacular third act space battle was the best in the business for decades. The Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide specifically calls out Return of the Jedi as one of Chris Roberts' major influences for the original Wing Commander game:
Roberts had always been fascinated by science fiction movies and television shows, especially those like Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Return of the Jedi. He liked the action elements of space combat, the dazzling special effects, and the variety of characters the
May
…While putting together the recent memorial update we extracted all of Maniac's in flight comms from Special Operations 2 to include in the post. After realizing how nice it was to be able to hear those lines on demand I decided to put together a complete archive of the comms from Wing Commander's infamous "Speech Accessory Packs". And so we did! You can find the complete index for four games below. Each site will let you read the script for each line and then play it right in your browser (or save it for later).
Wing Commander
The original Wing Commander didn't ship with speech but several later versions have added it. We've included the Super Wing Commander audio along with the scripts for several different ports; it's pretty interesting to see how things were censored for the Super Nintendo release! We'll add the Sega CD versions of the audio files once they can be extracted with Originator.
Wingmen
May
…A surprisingly tense mining boom in LP 855-34 has concluded, with supporters of Felicia Winters claiming success over Yuri Grom's pilots.
A call for Platinum by the system's governing faction triggered an influx of ships representing the two powers. Longstanding issues between Yuri Grom and the Federation fed into the competitive aspect of the issue, and it is perhaps no surprise that it was the latter who claimed the greatest number of mined resources in the end.
Speaking on behalf of Winters' support base, a representative gave this statement:
"The efforts of our mining teams over the past two weeks have been nothing short of remarkable. We provided enough Platinum to ensure that LP 855-34's governing faction will meet its manifesto building projects. And, just as significantly, we showed that the Federation dominates all competitors in matters of industry!"
Those who took part in the
May
Display MoreBack when we were surfing the net at 14.4k bps, the only realistic way to test drive the latest Wing Commander games was by loading it from the cover CD of a magazine. In fact, Wing Commander III's then-massive demo was the centerpiece of the very first PC Gamer cover disc! To honor that history, here are all five of the PC Gamer discs that brought us bonus Wing Commander combat starting with Wing Commander III in 1994 and going all the way to the shocking free release of Kilrathi Saga WC1 in 2000!
December 1994 - Wing Commander III Demo
January 1996 - Wing Commander IV Demo
March 1998 - Wing Commander Prophecy Demo
November 1998 - Wing Commander Secret Ops - Episode One
July 2000 - Wing Commander I Kilrathi Saga
May
…Did you know that Cobalt 60's Prophecy album wasn't Wing Commander's first flirtation with electro-industrial music? The band Velvet Acid Christ actually composed a track in 1994 called "Furless Freak" for an album called Dimension 8 that heavily sampled Super Wing Commander. When we say heavily we mean it: you're going to hear the first briefing and what seems to be a playthrough of the following mission. It's weird and cool! Is it worth your time? Yes, this is objectively the greatest song ever recorded.
Download MP3
Dimension 8 was not released commercially at the time but it was included as a hidden bonus in mp3 format on VAC's 2000 album Twisted Thought Generator. It was later made available for free at the band's website and in 2020 it was remastered for a digital release which you can purchase today! Here's the official description:
Dimension 8 by Velvet Acid Christ follows their previous
May
…The Alliance Assembly has voted to end the strategic defence pact between the Alliance and Sirius Corporation.
The pact, agreed in January 3308, was a response to growing Thargoid hostility in the months prior to the alien invasion of the core systems. At the time, the Alliance Defence Force was seen as lacking adequate Anti-Xeno modules and defences. Sirius Corporation spent billions on refitting ADF vessels over the past three years, but has been accused of leveraging its position to secure profitable contracts in unrelated fields.
The motion to end the pact was raised by Councilor Nakato Kaine, seconded by Councilor Ainsley Niven of Reorte, and was approved by a slim majority. In her opening argument Kaine had called the pact an 'opportunistic ploy for military influence in Alliance space, with eyes on a monopoly over small corporations founded in Alliance member systems.'
Prime Minister
