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Today we've got a look back at Ascii Sector. The project began in the 2000s as a novel ASCII art take on Wing Commander Privateer. If you've been following us for a long time, you'll recall that the project actually won Fan Project of the Year for 2008. However, a few years later, the project removed "Privateer" from the name and started to change up the internal assets to avoid a sense of direct copyright infringement/overlap. I would have argued that there was no practical concern, since the project was fairly low-key and EA has a long history of not worrying about fan projects and mods, but I get it. And then we lost track of things for the past decade!

Fast forward today, and I see that development continued into 2016. Unfortunately, the game's website and associated materials appear to have gone offline in 2022, but you can still find a copy and download the latest version via archive.org.

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The anti-xeno agency Aegis has been officially reformed by the Alliance, Empire and Federation.
Aegis was initially founded in 3303 to centralise research into the Thargoids, as well as coordinate defence and rescue operations. It was disbanded in 3308 following accusations of incompetence in the wake of the Alexandria disaster and the subsequent findings of the Baumann Report. The recent escalation of the Thargoid War and calls for renewed collaboration between the superpowers have led to a reversal of that decision.
Professor Alba Tesreau will serve as the head of the revived organisation. She provided details at a press conference:
"Aegis remains humanity's best hope of ending this calamitous war with the Thargoids. Its priority is to better understand the alien species through scientific research, and to utilise those findings to improve our defensive and weapon capabilities."
"Each

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If you want to try out the new renderer for Freelancer you can do it now during our beta test. Also this helps us finding remaining issues.

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This evening we've got a video from Linus Tech Tips about the reasons why you might emulate old hardware compared with building up a a classic PC of your own. There are pros and cons each way, and it's a good discussion about some of the many challenges than can go into getting vintage games running. I'm not a fan of these goofy thumbnails, but it's a charming video. It's really nice to see someone navigate those retro Windows 95 and DOS interfaces. Wing Commander appears at the 13:55 point in a brief anecdote about how some games could run too fast on newer hardware. It's kind of funny/amazing that that's an obscure enough bit of information in 2023 that it's worth calling out!

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Here's one you might never notice: Privateer has four different gameflow backgrounds for the ship dealers! New Constantinople (stripe), Oxford (wood floor), New Detroit (darker wall) and everything else!

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President Zachary Hudson and Shadow President Felicia Winters have united behind Federal backing for the reformation of Aegis.
Congress held an emergency debate after the Alliance and Empire agreed to support an official tri-superpower initiative against the Thargoids. A majority of votes from Republican, Liberal and independent representatives approved the provision of ships, personnel and materials from the Federation.
President Hudson delivered a short address to mark the occasion:
"The intensified Thargoid attacks against the core systems demand a proportionate response. We recognise that Salvation was directly responsible for many of the tragic events that Aegis was blamed for. The Federation has an opportunity to correct that misjudgement and do our part to defeat a common adversary."
Congressman Tom Gillespie has volunteered to coordinate the Federation's involvement with any unified

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Again, it should be pretty obvious that this is a photo from the set and not a frame from the movie. But it did get me thinking about Tchéky Karyo headshots...

This picture shows up as a lobby card and in other promotional material... but it turns out it's NOT the same as the headshot that's used in the movie!

But here's some neat continuity: that in universe one DOES match the photo in the Confederation Handbook for Paladin's psychological profile.

I also checked the archive of the movie's official site, which had this little bit of lore we've saved all these years. A third photo!

... but here's another great touch: the signature on the letter at the movie site matches the one used for a letter he authored in the Handbook! Now THAT is attention to detail.

On a separate note, Mr. Karyo was born in Turkey, which suffered a terrible earthquake this week. You can help donate to relief efforts in Turkey and

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*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
A successful initiative to hold the California Nebula against Thargoid invasion has succeeded, for now at least.
Systems recently invaded by Thargoid fleets were protected by a militia organised by the Kumo Council, the criminal syndicate's ruling authority in the enclave. But an attempt to assume control of the region's ports has been surprisingly repelled by opponents of Delaine.
The Pegasi Sentinel reported on the situation:
"There can be no doubt that Archon Delaine takes the security of the California Nebula seriously. Many lives were saved thanks to his decisive actions. A Kumo Crew anti-xeno militia is already being considered for future Thargoid attacks."
"Local residents remain wary of Delaine's reputation, however. Security forces deployed to local ports have been driven out, with communities apparently unconvinced by claims of 'emergency security

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Maxi de Sokar has come across another vintage Wing Commander article from the Spanish press. This one is preview of Wing Commander 3 from Issue 78 of Micromanía. It features the wacky Spanish art and early engine screenshots. I always say that you don't have to speak the language to appreciate the artistic and historic merit of scans like these, but I also included a Google Translation to help convey a bit more of what they're saying. As you might expect, they really play up the size and scale - from shipping on multiple (ultimately four rather than two) CDs and featuring a big budget live shoot. It's really hard to recreate the sense of how mind blowing all of this was to gamers in 1994, but this gives you an idea!

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Dominus of Exult is back with another neat Wing Commander collectible find! It's a copy of WC1 localized for Poland. There are several fascinating elements. The blue box denotes the 'deluxe edition' that would normally include both Secret Missions, although the presence of just three disks implies the expansions are not included (unless there are missing disks). Various documentation bits have been translated, including a copy of Claw Marks. Especially cool are the non-graphical blueprints. They're just glossy blue fold-outs with stats! You would have needed them for the copy protection, but omitting the fighter diagrams is an interesting choice.

Found another odd WC in Poland. Slide cover, 3 floppies, even got the blueprints specs translated but no actual blueprints

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Anti-authoritarian protests have surged in the Alliance, Empire and Federation with governments accused of responsibility for Thargoid hostility.
Vox Galactica's political correspondent Conrad Sterling published a special report:
"The xeno-peace movement, which originally advocated diplomatic relations with the Thargoids, lost a lot of momentum following the arrival of the Maelstroms. But some former members are blaming Allied, Federal and Imperial leaders for allowing the war to escalate, with profits from corporate arms deals seen as the motive."
"Timothy Culver, once a spokesperson for the Thargoid Advocacy Project, believes that conflict was always the superpowers' policy. 'They knew the Proteus Wave would trigger an aggressive reaction from the Thargoids,' he claims – without providing evidence, it should be noted. 'Shareholders in the military/industrial complex always make a fortune

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StarvingPilot shared this nice catch from a recent watch of Die Hard 2. A techie console from the film appears to be a perfect match to a console aboard the TCS Midway. It's the one that Lance Casey taps on after his missions. There's probably a ton of things like this out there! Companies like Modern Props widely supply futuristic machinery and gizmos to all manner of movies, television shows and game shoots. If anyone spots any other crossovers like this, let us know!

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The Alliance Assembly has voted to make a contribution to Aegis if the agency is reformed by the three superpowers.
Prime Minister Edmund Mahon made an official announcement:
"Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval's change of heart regarding anti-xeno collaboration has triggered swift action from Alliance systems. The Assembly has re-appraised a bill proposed last November by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Corcoran, seeking to approve Aegis's reformation. A majority vote has now passed that bill."
"The Alliance will therefore commit ships, resources and personnel to a collaborative anti-xeno agency. We will also share Thargoid-related intelligence and scientific data to a central database shared with the Empire and Federation."
"The strategic defence pact with Sirius Corporation remains in effect, and the company continues to work with us on protecting Allied systems."
It has been suggested that Li

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It's time for a new poll, and we've got a fun one here. LOAF recently put together a neat comparison of all the Wing Commander Academy ships alongside their game counterparts. It's a really stunning visual! Today's survey asks which one you think made the best transition from the PC to television. Make your pick below:

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The last poll was our annual evaluation of what people think the year ahead will be like. I think it's a surprisingly positive result! It's still early, and already we've got exciting things like the vinyl album on the horizon. Of course, the community is what we make it, and we can all help make the year great!

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What a nice way to start the weekend! Klavs has wrapped up the texturing on his updated Ferret model. There are two variants. One is a familiar paint scheme based on what you might find in WC2/In-System Security. There's also a more muted gray set in End Run/the TCS Tarawa. They make a potent pair!

Calling this done for now.

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Mac is back with his biggest, baddest and most epic Lore Video yet! In recent months he's covered several adjacent topics such as the Broadsword Bomber and TCS Johnny Greene, which have helped set the stage for the main event: Wing Commander End Run. If you've read the novel, you know the story. The video starts out as the mother of all book reports, but it's much more than that! Mac uses a variety of WC2 talking head models and backdrops to convey the character interaction. He's also built a huge library of animations to visualize the story's fleet actions and fighter combat. It's quite a tremendous package. Block out some time and watch below!

The Terran Confederation is losing the war against their long time enemies, the Kilrathi Empire. What follows becomes the tale of "The Little Escort Carrier that Could", aka The "End Run".

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*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
The Kumo Crew is marshalling the defence of the California Nebula by offering rewards for eliminating Thargoid vessels.
The Kumo Council, the syndicate's ruling body, assumed control of several systems that were recently invaded by Thargoid fleets. Independent pilots have been asked to take part in anti-xeno initiatives within the region, which are being coordinated from The Mictlan megaship.
Harrison Gladstone of the Turner Research Group, which represents the Alliance in the California Nebula, made a formal protest:
"We are not happy about defence initiatives being funded by a ruthless criminal gang. These pirates are using the Thargoid attacks to expand their illegal activity, thus jeopardising our faction's scientific and commercial interests. Several of our ports in the area are now under Kumo Crew 'emergency protections', as they've termed it. This is an

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I’m working on a Righteous Fire walkthrough and while playing the last missions I noticed the Elite Salthi were firing fusion guns. But my increasingly old man memory was sure the big reveal was that they fired copies of the Steltek Gun. Was I misremembering because there’s dialogue about the gun being copied? I watched a dozen YouTube videos and they were all fusion guns. Huh!

Then I realized: I first played the expansion when it was released on disk in early 1994, just a few months before the CD-ROM came out and that became the de facto version of Privateer. Could there have been an intentional change? I installed the floppy version from disk images and… sure enough!

WHY? It’s not an accident as the Dralthi uses fusions in both versions. I’m guessing the support folks were sick of people asking how to get the gun back and decided not to tease players. Too bad, as it was a distinct enough moment

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Last month, we reported that Supercade was planning to manage a crowd funding campaign for a vinyl release of George Oldziey's Wing Commander Orchestral Recording Project. Now, it seems like the launch is imminent as Supercade author Van Burnham has just tweeted:

Just a heads up that the preorder campaign for Supercade’s first soundtrack release is launching SOON… a deluxe vinyl edition of the Wing Commander orchestral score by composer George Oldziey. So excited to share more details!#wingcommander #videogamesoundtrack #vinylcollector pic.twitter.com/DOWHWtyuZc

— Van Burnham (@supercade71) February 1, 2023

There's no additional information yet but we'll let you know the moment it's available. If you are curious about the promotional screenshot, it's actually from a Wing Commander Academy mod developed by HCl that adds a Hellcat V to the game! Want to try it for yourself? You can download te patch here.